EDMONTON, Canada — It is early morning at Edmonton’s fire training center when Kevin Royle puts the last packages into a 40-foot long shipping container. The day has finally arrived: 14,000 kilograms worth of gear, four diesel generators, an SCBA refilling machine, emergency response equipment, and medical supplies have all been checked, cleaned and packaged, ready to ship to Ukraine. Royle clips a padlock onto the container doors and calls the crane operators. His job is done.
Royle, an Edmonton firefighter, logged hundreds of hours to put together with donated gear that his non-profit charity Firefighter Aid Ukraine, or FAU, has collected from across the province and beyond for his firefighter brothers in Ukraine. The team initially planned to ship the container in fall, but donations kept coming in, so they kept filling the container until it was stuffed from front to back and bottom to top.
“I’m happy,” he said as he watches the crane lift a container that had frozen into the ground over the past few months. “It is finally happening because of all the volunteers and their dedication.” It took Royle and the team $21,000 to prepare the container and almost $7,000 to arrange the shipping.
Firefighter Aid Ukraine team poses for a final photo with the container before it departed Edmonton to Ukraine’s Odesa on Feb. 5, 2020. (Brad LaFoy)
The sea can is currently en route to the western Canadian port city of Vancouver where it will depart for Ukraine. It is expected to arrive in Odesa in two months. In Ukraine, State Emergency Service will receive the container and with the help of the Odesa Rotary Club, the donations will be distributed between five oblasts: Odesa, Dnipro, Poltava, Cherkasy, and Rivne. “Our help is much needed there,” Royle said.
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 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, the Consulate of Ukraine in Edmonton 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.
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.
He 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. It took longer to prepare, but looking at a 14,000-kilogram sea can loaded onto a truck on Feb. 5, Royle is satisfied.
Read more on how Firefighter Aid Ukraine helps Ukrainian firefighters here.
Now he is planning the next stages of his project: this time, more hands-on. Royle’s colleagues will soon travel to Ukraine to teach their counterparts how to properly clean the gear to maximize its lifespan and make the best use of it. They also want to organize training on safety, water, and ice rescue as well as emergency medical services.
According to Canadian standards, Royle explained, 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.
Royle says he enjoys every part of his firefighter job, which he became 10 years ago, and now seven years since his first visit to Ukraine. “It’s just great to serve your community and to have challenges every day.”
