EDMONTON, Canada — When a siren pierced the air of a quiet Nedoboivtsi village in Ukraine’s Chernivtsi Oblast for the first time in decades, everybody was taken unawares, and for a good reason.
The village, located 440 kilometers southwest of Kyiv, had just reopened the local fire station. Since spring 2016, four professional firefighters have been keeping their community, home to 3,000 people, safe. There is also a special reinforcement group helping them — eight volunteer firefighters who work side by side with professional first responders.
It would have been impossible if not for Vyacheslav Todosiychuk, a local entrepreneur and Nedoboivtsi native. He used his own funds to create a volunteer firefighter group and eventually became a firefighter himself.
Todosiychuk found his inspiration in Poland, where he met with a local farmer who spends his spare time helping professional firefighters. “There I witnessed an incredible atmosphere — that these people are doing the job they really love, helping their communities,” he said.
A mayor of Nedoboivtsi amalgamated community in Chernivtsi Oblast Yurii Yuzva (R) and Vyacheslav Todosiychuk, a local entrepreneur and a volunteer firefighter look at the fire truck at one of Edmontons fire stations in June 2019. (Brad LaFoy)
Since then Todosiychuk dreamed about creating the same in his hometown. Upon his return, Todosiychuk spent his own money to buy a fire truck, cranes, hoses, and uniforms. Then he faced the final challenge — finding like-minded people ready to respond to fire emergencies. To his surprise, fellow villagers turned out quickly.
Vasyl Maidanskiy decided to join to help people. In 2016, he said, there were only three volunteer firefighters and their main task was to bring water to people if their wells were empty.
Volunteer firefighters must undergo classroom instruction covering such topics as personal protective equipment, search and rescue, and handling hoses. But even after training not everyone feels sufficiently prepared.
Maidanskiy still remembers his first fire: “I had mixed feelings. I’d only seen it on TV. But the professional firefighter guided us through and we successfully localized the fire.”
In 2015, Nedoboivtsi village became the center of the Nedoboivska Amalgamated Territorial Community, one of the new local administration units created within Ukraine’s attempt to decentralize power in the country. Since then, the firefighters serve approximately 8,100 residents across four villages and their surroundings.
New horizons
Todosiychyk’s initiative opened new possibilities. They took part in a social initiative organized by the Volunteer Firefighter Project, launched in Ukraine in 2017. It successfully showed how their community formed a voluntary fire brigade on the ground and improved the culture of safety among the population.
As the next step to improving their village, Todosiychyk and the mayor of the amalgamated community, Yurii Yuzva, got a chance to learn from Firefighter Aid Ukraine, a non-profit charity assisting firefighters in Ukraine. There was one challenge — the organization is based in Canada. But distance didn’t stop Todosiychuk and Yuzva from taking the journey.
They arrived in Edmonton in early summer for a 10-day visit packed with events and meetings — all organized by Kevin Royle, an Edmonton firefighter and head of Firefighter Aid Ukraine (FAU).
In 2012, Royle visited Ukraine for the first time with a Rotary Group Study Exchange. The Ukrainian firefighters were using Soviet-era trucks from the 1970s and wearing welding gloves with holes, he said. After seeing how depleted the resources were across the nation, Royle decided to step in and create FAU to provide assistance.
With the help of Rotary Clubs in both Ukraine and Canada, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and several departments and businesses throughout Canada, FAU successfully completed its first mission in 2017, delivering more than 6,000 kilograms of aid to seven oblasts in Ukraine, including Lviv, Uzhorod, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Kyiv.
Volunteers sort gear donated for Firefighters Aid Ukraine. The second deployment of goods is scheduled to depart to Ukraine in August, 2019. (Brad LaFoy)
Royle, who spearheaded a local effort to collect the donations, said they came in from across Alberta and weren’t limited just to gear. The group also brought over oxygen tanks, hoses and nozzles as well as medical supplies for hospitals.
With the help of The Rotary Club, FAU tracks how the gear is used. It is also specially marked in order to identify any gear that ends up being resold in grey markets.
Royle said the trip revealed that more work was needed. Given the success of the project’s first iteration, the group decided to commit to a second deployment.
Todosiychuk and Yuzva had a chance to witness an early stage of deployment preparation: When they arrived at sorting center Edmonton’s west end, they were surprised to see volunteer high school students busy carrying boxes of equipment, sorting boots and pants while other volunteers placed helmets in separate boxes.
Both men immediately started filming the process. “We need to show fellow villagers how people here in Canada try to help Ukrainians,” Todosiychuk explained. “They are not some kind of millionaires, they are ordinary people just like us. And they take their time to send us all this gear.”
According to Canadian standards, Royle explained, the firefighter protective gear must be retired from service every 10 years. FAU is constantly in contact with private vendors, businesses, municipalities, and fire departments for donations in the form of unwanted firefighting equipment, including bunker/turnout gear, helmets and footwear; hand, power, hydraulic, and pneumatic tools used in life rescue operations and emergency service-specific equipment.
More than 140 helmets, 260 jackets and 172 pair of pants have already been sorted and are ready to load into a shipping container. It is scheduled to depart to Ukraine in August.
Royle, who has been a firefighter for 10 years, says he enjoys every part of his job. “It’s just great to serve your community and to have challenges every day.” He also believes it’s important to support the new movement of creating municipal-run services in Ukraine and getting communities more involved in fire rescue.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, there are 152,650 local firefighters in Canada. Only 17 percent are career firefighters. The rest are volunteers.
Yuzva, the mayor of Nedoboivtsi, told the Kyiv Post that his trip to Canada helped bring an understanding of the work of Canadian fire departments, educational system and municipalities. He hopes for more joint Ukrainian-Canadian projects.
