Diversity Insights from Wildland fire canada 2019

by Jen Beverly
I recently had the great fortune to serve as Program Chair for Canada’s national fire conference Wildland Fire Canada 2019. The conference was held in Ottawa, Ontario, November 19-21, 2019, following several years of planning. As Program Chair, my role included assembling a Program Committee. I wanted a committee that could represent the diverse components of Canada’s wildland fire science and management community. I also wanted to use my role as program chair to promote gender diversity at the conference. 

Fortunately it was easy to do both and I assembled a committee with a 50/50 split of female and male participants: Maria Sharpe (Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre), Lori Daniels (University of British Columbia), Ginny Marshall (Canadian Forest Service), Sylvie Gauthier (Canadian Forest Service), Sonja Leverkus (Shifting Mosaic Consulting), Colin McFayden (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry), Kelly Johnston (FireSmart Canada), Neal McLoughlin (Alberta Wildfire), Morgan Oikle (Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry), and Jeff Eyamie (Health Canada). ​This amazing group of individuals gave-up countless hours of their personal time to help build a rich and compelling program for conference participants along with recruiting and organizing a small army of session moderators. 

Another one of our tasks was to identify and recruit six outstanding keynote speakers – and here again – the diversity objective came into play. As a female who has spent the past 25 years working professionally in male-dominated workplaces ranging from frontline firefighting to senior supervisory roles, I have personally experienced just about every kind of gender-based bullying, discrimination and harassment that you can imagine. I know that real change only happens when individuals with influence and power take it upon themselves to protect, inspire, mentor and support women working in unconventional roles so they can persevere and overcome what are often seemingly insurmountable barriers to their professional success. 

Many such individuals helped keep me in the fire research game over the years and I was inspired by just such a person when I attended the 6th International Wildland Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in May 2019. During a panel presentation called “What happens when women thrive – a life and a career in fire” I heard Deanne Shulman speak about her experiences as a pioneer woman in fire management in the United States Forest Service, and first woman smokejumper in that country.

Deanne was hired by the US Forest Service in 1974 and worked seasonally for a dozen years in a variety of suppression positions including a hotshot crew, fire engine, helicopter rappelling crew, fire patrol, and lastly as a smokejumper. She then progressed to varied fire management roles at district and forest levels, followed by international assignments in fire and disaster response and a position with the Forest Service Office of International Programs. Now almost a decade since her retirement from the Forest Service, Deanne works as an international consultant for natural resources and emergency management programs development.  

When I listened to Deanne speak in Albuquerque about her experiences as a woman in fire that were disquietingly reminiscent of my own, I was stunned by her grace and poise in recounting workplace discrimination that would have been personally devastating and soul crushing at the time she experienced it. Her eloquent and calm message of stubborn perseverance in the face of adversity was direct, matter of fact, deftly speckled with humour, and downright moving – I just knew we had to get her to Canada. 

​Fortunately, Deanne was willing, and we secured her as one of our invited featured speakers for the conference. She did not disappoint. Her talk ended with a resounding standing ovation and a flurry of Twitter accolades. I was honestly blown away. 

When Deanne returned to the speaker table after her talk, I shook her hand and congratulated her. She looked at me cheerfully and said “I’m retired, I can talk about these things. Someday you’ll be retired too.” 

This is true. ​

In the meantime, I can tell you that I did what I could to promote gender diversity at the conference – and not just with the composition of my program committee and selection of keynotes. Three of my female graduate students (Kiera Smith, Kate Bezooyen, and Hilary Cameron) attended the conference and delivered wonderful presentations of their work. Two members of my research team (Sonja Leverkus and Kate Bezooyen) participated in the panel on diverse and healthy workforces organized by Maria Sharpe (CIFFC). I also invited Liz Chapman (Alberta Wildfire) and Laura Stewart (Alberta Wildfire/FireSmart Canada) to help me deliver a well-attended pre-conference technical workshop on the FireSmart Exposure Assessment tool – offering a unique all-female instructional team to a group of attendees that was 1/3 female.

Nonetheless, at the conference and on social media, I heard some grumblings about the lack of diversity at the conference.

​By their very nature, conference programs and attendees will mirror their respective communities and we should not expect them to achieve some idealized notion of what that community ought to look like. Real diversity in the wildland fire science and management community is going to take time and will only be achieved through ongoing, everyday commitment to action. That being said, I do believe that events like conferences can serve as catalysts for change – the challenge is to move beyond token representations of diversity that are unlikely to persist in any kind of meaningful or sustained ways after the conference ends. 

Deanne was our only female keynote. We tried unsuccessfully to recruit more women into those roles, but I’m not sure that a 50/50 gender split would have made sense as a target. Superficial representations at conferences won’t change the real disparities or the ingrained barriers. I like to think that highlighting even one inspiring voice can bring about big changes in how the broader community thinks and acts. I hope that anyone who wanted to see more speakers at the conference who were female or Indigenous or social scientists or fire managers or any other under-represented group will make a personal commitment to take real action in the years ahead to support and mentor representatives to fill those gaps at the next conference. But let’s be sure to measure our progress in achieving diversity using meaningful metrics – not token participation numbers at a single event.

The diversity panel I saw in Albuquerque and the one Maria Sharpe organized for our conference provide an excellent template for sustaining the diversity conversation. It can be done – get people together and give them a voice. Then listen.
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As for me – I’m looking forward to attending the next conference rather than planning it. I’d encourage everyone to volunteer for a conference planning role at some point in their careers. It was a great experience and I learned so much from it all. I really am exceedingly grateful that I had a chance to be a part of the planning team for Wildland Fire Canada 2019. It was such an honour to work with so many great people including my program committee members; two very adept conference Co-Chairs, Mike Wotton (Canadian Forest Service) and Bill Cole (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, now retired); Natasha Jurko (Canadian Forest Service) who is my recommendation for the next Wildland Fire Canada Conference Chair; and countless other moderators, special session organizers, speakers, participants and volunteers who stepped-up to ensure the conference was a success. Thank you all so much!