This year’s social media expert has spurred this particular “rant”. And by Rant, I mean an experienced and thoughtful counterpoint to this most recent ridiculous proposal to misappropriate funds to a non-existent agency.
Here We Go Again: “Let the Military Fight Wildfires!” (Why Do We Keep Doing This?)
It’s wildfire season in Canada. You know what that means: smoke on the horizon, boots in the ash, and—right on cue—a parade of “experts” surfaces with the same old plan to save the day. Every year, without fail, someone pipes up to suggest we hand the wildfire job over to the military. It’s a bit like suggesting you call your plumber to do your heart surgery, but hey, we’re nothing if not persistent.
Who’s Actually Proposing This Stuff?
You want to know who’s pushing these ideas? It’s rarely anyone who’s actually flown on a fire, or spent hours working a radio with ground crews, coordinating drops to save ranches and homes. And it’s definitely not anyone with actual boots-on-the-ground military experience. What’s always missing from these proposals? Field time. Real-world stress. Knowing what it’s like to make a call that actually matters to the people on the ground.
Instead, it’s usually politicians, or someone with a passing connection to aviation, eager to make a mark or score political points. The common denominator? Not one of them has ever been responsible for what happens when things get real because they haven’t ever actually been out there.
These annual proposals are visible from a mile away. You see the pattern: aerospace background, maybe some connections, but precious little field time. Means well. Misses the point.
It’s a Nice Idea. Until You Try It.
To someone whose only wildland fire experience is watching Firewatch on the six o’clock news, it makes sense. Soldiers have discipline. The Forces have gear. What could go wrong?
Well, plenty.
Wildfire agencies—those provincial crews—aren’t just making it up as they go. These folks have decades of hard-won tricks and a gut instinct for fire behaviour you can’t teach in a briefing room.
You can throw a military pilot in a firefighting aircraft, but you can’t teach them the rhythm of fire from a desk or a flight simulator. No disrespect—different games, different skill sets.
As for the military? Their business is defence, not wildland fire. They don’t practice this. When you do see them out there, it’s as backup. And honestly, sometimes they’re more in the way than anything. Not their fault—they’re professionals, but they’re being handed the wrong tool for the wrong job.
Let’s talk about experience. A military pilot at retirement might have logged 5,000 hours in the cockpit. Impressive by military standards, no question. But I work with civilian pilots in the wildfire game who have 30,000 hours. That’s not a typo—thirty thousand. You can’t tell me those are interchangeable skill sets, or that one is as effective as the other when it comes to fighting fire. Experience counts. It’s as simple as that. Again, no disrespect to the military—they do what they do with real skill and professionalism. But a guy with five or even ten thousand hours of military flying will rarely match a civilian who’s got twice that—or more—flying right in the thick of it, season after season.
Happily, I have worked with the exception to this observation, and there are guys who transition to civilian flying (on the helicopter side) that do quite well. But I’d say there are more who don’t than do. I don’t have experience with the fixed-wing pilot transition, so I won’t comment there, but I would suspect it is rife with similar experience. It’s just the way the military trains and operates compared to the way the civilian world trains and operates. They are very different beasts despite the obvious commonalities of machines used to complete tasks.
Mission Creep: The Road to Nowhere
Let’s not mince words: Any proposal to stand up a new “military wildfire branch” is pure, unfiltered mission creep. It’s silly, and really, a little insulting. Our military’s job is already overwhelming—there isn’t a single area that doesn’t need attention, investment, and real support. Everything needs improving. The last thing our Forces need is to watch desperately needed funds get funnelled away into a scheme that won’t help them do their actual job: fighting bad guys, not forest fires.
Ask NATO if they’ll be impressed. Spoiler: they won’t. Ask the rank and file if they want this. They don’t. They’d rather see those dollars go into gear, training, and the sort of upgrades that actually matter on operations. Not into some idiotic idea of starting a new firefighting branch that has zero to do with the core job of the military.
Fighting is the business of the military. Firefighting? That’s what our experienced provincial agencies are for. Using the Forces as a band-aid for underfunded civilian programs isn’t “innovative”—it’s desperation as policy. Just because a politician, spurred on by bad advice from someone who’s never sweated through a fire season or worn a uniform, says it’s a good idea, doesn’t make it so.
Funding Fiasco: Airway Robbery
Every time you yank resources away from the military to play firefighter, you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. The military needs new kit. They need money. They need focus. NATO isn’t going to be thrilled if we suddenly decide “defence” now includes airdropping water on pine forests.
But sure—let’s order up a fleet of shiny new CL515s for this imaginary force. Sixty, maybe in this latest “expert” proposal. Why not? Never mind that Canada’s military procurement moves at the speed of molasses in January, by the time they get delivered, half the advocates here will be retired, and the wildfires will have burned another fifty million hectares.
Here’s the main problem: every order for the military clogs up the assembly line for the folks who actually know how to use these planes. If you’re waiting for your provincial agency to get a new skimmer, you’ll wait even longer. Priorities, right?
Airplane Bingo: Do You Even Know What You Need?
Let’s clear up a persistent bit of confusion. You don’t fight wildfires with just one kind of aircraft. That’s like bringing a salad fork to a gunfight.
Skimmers: These are your CL-215s, CL-415s, CL-515s—amphibious, fixed-wing, built to scoop water from a lake and get back over the fire before your coffee cools. Conair also makes the Air Tractor AT802 Fire Boss that can do similar tricks, smaller tanks, same concept.
Bombers (Airtankers): Your big stuff. Airspray’s Electras, Coulson’s C-130s. Conairs Dash 8 and RJ85. They lug retardant out of airbases, drop lines ahead of the flames, then turn back to reload. Good for building barriers. Guiding the fire in a particular direction with some additional luck.
Helicopters: The most versatile of the lot. They’ll drop crews, sling water, pick up from puddles, refill from rivers, get where fixed-wings can’t. Ask anyone on the ground: heli is king for initial attack and precision work.
If you’re reading proposals that ignore helicopters entirely, you’re looking at a document written by someone who’s never left the tarmac. No single type gets it done—any plan that doesn’t mention all three is not a plan, it’s a fantasy.
The Real People Know Better
Ask someone who’s done a season—hell, a week—on the fireline, and they’ll tell you: the military can help, in a pinch, if you need warm bodies. But building a new wildfire agency from scratch, then training them up to provincial standards? Years. Maybe decades. You’ll have to poach experienced people from the existing teams, which just guts the system we’ve already got.
It’s Bad for Both Sides
Meanwhile, our actual military gets the short end. Less money, less equipment, and more mission creep. NATO gets antsy. Morale sags. All to stand up a fire agency that isn’t needed, because we already have one that works.
End Game
Next time you hear “let the military do it,” remember: Good intentions don’t put out fires.
Experience does.
You want results? Put your money into the agencies that know what they’re doing. Buy them better gear. Give them more crews. Let the military do their job—defending the country—because we need them focused, not firefighting.
Let’s stop reinventing the wheel. The fire’s already burning. Maybe let’s not add more smoke.
