Horse River Wildfire Industry Lessons Learned January 2017Prepared in partnership with the Industry Recovery Working Group

Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary 1

2 Introduction 2

2.1 Situation Overview 2

2.2 Timeline 3

2.3 Objectives of Report 4

2.4 Scope 5

2.5 Approach 6

3 Regional Prepardness 6

3.1 Introduction 6

3.2 Overview of Main “Lessons Learned” Themes 6

3.3 Findings, Recommendations and Case Studies 7

3.3.1 Evacuation Logistics and Critical Infrastructure 7

3.3.2 Incident Command System (ICS) and Training 9

3.3.3 Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) Coordination 11

3.3.4 Industry Liaison Role 13

3.3.5 Communication and Information Sharing 15

4 Conclusion 17

Appendix A - Bibliography 18

Appendix B - Abbreviations 19

1. Executive Summary

On May 1, 2016, a wildfire began in the region south of Fort McMurray that would ravage across 590,000 hectares of land, multiple neighbourhoods and become known as the costliest natural disaster in Canada’s history. The path of the fire tore through rural and municipal land and approached the boundaries of several industrial sites, requiring the response of government agencies, first responders, social profits, and industry.

As the primary employer in the region with significant large-scale assets spread throughout the area, the energy industry played a pivotal role in supporting the community and protecting critical operations through the provision of firefighting, evacuation and logistics, accommodations and supplies. The Horse River wildfire had an immense impact on the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB), however through stakeholder collaboration, more than 80,000 people were safely evacuated.

Given the impact to employees (half of the houses lost to the fire belonged to industry workers) and operations (production losses of 16.8 million barrels), the Industry Recovery Working Group (IRWG) with the support of Accenture pro bono services, identified the opportunity to capture the major learnings and collaborate with key stakeholders to support future preparedness planning as the community looks to recover and revive the economic resiliency of the region.

The scope of this report focuses on industry actions and learnings from the emergency response that occurred between May 1 and June 1, 2016. This report highlights stakeholder interactions, feedback and perspectives from a diverse cross-section of industry members. It does not include the lessons learned gathered from the RMWB or the Government of Alberta (GoA), however the intent is to share the learnings for inclusion in the broader Alberta Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) report.

Following one-on-one interviews and an industry workshop with 17 participating organizations representing oil sands producers, pipeline and service firms, common findings were uncovered and grouped into five key themes:

1. Evacuation Logistics and Critical Infrastructure2. Incident Command System (ICS) and Training 3. Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) Coordination 4. Industry Liaison Role 5. Communication and Information Sharing

Each of the above themes is interconnected and form part of two overarching recommendations that are essential for future regional preparedness:

1. The RMWB should develop a comprehensive regional response plan in collaboration with key stakeholders in the region, including industry which is a critical community partner, employer and investor in the region. Once developed, this plan should be reviewed and exercised collectively on an annual basis.

The diverse landscape of stakeholders and business operations in the RMWB creates a unique opportunity to build a regional response plan that takes advantage of the multi-stakeholder perspectives, expertise and resources that each party can bring to the table during an emergency response.

2. A best practice model for collaboration across government, industry, and community can be built from the relationships developed during the response to strengthen the pace and quality of community recovery and preparedness planning. Time spent today on proactive collaboration will benefit those facing emergency situations in the future and contribute to the economic recovery of the region.

Lastly, several of the recommendations shared in this report reflect repeat findings that are mentioned in other lessons learned reports and case studies. From the critical need to have a single, fully-implemented ICS that defines roles and accountabilities for all key parties, to the requirement to effectively communicate local plans to all stakeholders and clearly identify evacuation protocols, communication mechanisms, critical resources and infrastructure – the region must take collective action to ensure similar findings are not repeated in the future.

While this report highlights key opportunities to improve regional preparedness, it is equally important to recognize and celebrate the efforts of stakeholders to work together and do whatever was necessary to keep people and assets safe.

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Horse River Wildfire by the Numbers

2. Introduction

2.1 Situation Overview

The RMWB is a vibrant community in northern Alberta that has a unique landscape of Fort McMurray residents, Aboriginal and rural communities, and a large industrial presence due to the Athabasca oil sands. The Alberta oil sands industry employs roughly 100,000 workers, many of whom call the Fort McMurray area home.

On May 1, 2016, residents of the Gregoire community were put on evacuation notice after a wildfire began southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta. In less than 18 hours, the fire spread through the RMWB, encompassing the region in flames and smoke, forcing entire communities to flee, including nearby industry operations which began evacuating thousands of employees and reducing operations to critical staff. Despite being the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history and the second provincial state of emergency in Alberta’s history, more than 80,000 people were evacuated safely.

Figure 1 – Summary of Canada’s Costliest Catastrophic Events Based on Cost to Insurers

The evacuation of the 80,000 residents was supported by industry which used its airstrip capacity and buses to move community members out of harm’s way. Additionally, industry mobilized into action to support forest fighting efforts and provided shelter and supplies to employees and residents. The philosophy was people’s safety and wellbeing first, assets second. As the fires continued to grow and encroach near critical infrastructure, several organizations made the decision to proactively shut-down production and evacuate. Despite the chaos and changing circumstances as the fire grew, the entire region came together to ensure the safety of every life.

12,000x larger than

West Edmonton Mall

300x larger than YYC Airport

1.04x larger than

Prince Edward Island

2,400+ houses & buildings destroyed

Over 590,000 hectares damaged, which is…

16.8 million barrels of lost oil production

$985 million in lost GDP (0.33% of Alberta’s GDP)

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Canada’s 5 Costliest Catastrophic Events

2.2 Timeline

May 5 • POC established • First AER / POC industry call• Service firm enters REOC • Several producers shutdown and evacuate,

including contractors

May 1 • Fire starts south of YMM• REOC is established

May 2 • RMWB local state of emergency

declared• Camp coalition formed

May 3 • Mandatory evacuation • ECC established via AER

May 4 • Provincial state of emergency declared• Industry call set up by large producers • One pipeline company shuts down

May 6 • POC recommends that three industry

producers, whom are part of the mutual aid agreement with the RMWB, can each send a senior leader to enter the REOC

May 7 • Three senior leaders were temporarily given

access to enter the REOC to provide information on critical infrastructure

• Two additional large oil sands producers shutdown and evacuate

• First industry representative enters the POC May 12

• Some producers begin remobilizing back to site post evacuation

May 23 • Phased remobilization continues

May 31 • POC industry liaison role ends

June 1 • Provincial state of emergency lifted • Phased re-entry of Fort McMurray

residents begins

May 16 • Fire returns, evacuation order along Aostra Road• Large producer meets with Deputy Ministers in

Edmonton to resolve fire map issue and get more involved in provincial emergency response

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2.3 Objectives of Report

Industry employees accounted for approximately 50 per cent of community members impacted by the fires. Companies were quick to respond and wanted to ensure their employees needs were supported and that longer-term, industry was involved in the recovery planning and decision-making process. To facilitate a united voice across industry, the Oil Sands Community Alliance (OSCA) and industry organizations (Shell, Suncor, Syncrude, CNRL, Bouchier Group, Finning, Nexen, CEDA, Enbridge) came together to form the Industry Recovery Working Group to represent industry’s collective view and interests.

Following the wildfire, companies began to collect lessons learned, however, there was no industry-wide forum where learnings could be shared across industry stakeholders. The IRWG, along with the support of a diverse cross-section of industry representatives, saw an opportunity to play a role in supporting the collection and facilitation of a cross-industry lessons learned effort to feed into the broader provincial review.

IRWG Lessons Learned Priorities

• Demonstrate industry leadership and capability in emergency response planning by taking a proactive approach to compile industry lessons learned and facilitate cross-industry stakeholder sessions.

• Develop timely and valuable learnings and precedence for how industry and other stakeholders can work together and respond in the future.

• Support successful future emergency response planning for the region by maintaining positive and constructive partnerships with key stakeholders in the region (i.e. GoA - AER, RMWB, etc.).

• Provide tangible inputs for the region-wide emergency response planning that will need to occur in the future to address existing gaps in response.

• Ensure alignment to provincial and municipal after action review process.

2.4 Scope

Several stakeholder groups played a pivotal role during response, such as first responders, government agencies, the Red Cross and other social profits, however, the scope of this report is focused on the key challenges and successes that were experienced from an industry perspective during the Horse River wildfire emergency response.

While a broad perspective was sought across producers, service firms and pipeline companies, it is acknowledged that this report does not capture each unique experience, however highlights consistent themes that emerged during the review. Although there are clear recommendations for improvements to ensure future regional preparedness, the belief that each stakeholder acted within their full capability to respond to the situation at hand cannot be overstated.

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2.5 Approach

The IRWG engaged Accenture through pro bono services, to gather and compile industry emergency response lessons learned. This effort was structured through four phases:

• Collect industry lessons learned with participating organizations (Figure 2);• Uncover gaps in the emergency response;• Identify applicable case studies in industry and disaster response; and• Develop recommendations and next step actions for consideration.

The input for the lessons learned section of this report were obtained through three primary actions:

Conducted 25 interviews with 17 participating organizations across producers, service firms and pipeline companies.

Facilitated a full-day cross industry lessons learned workshop on Nov 4, 2016 in Calgary. In attendance were 22 key stakeholders that were involved during the response.

Reviewed and analyzed information received from companies and previous case study reports.

One-on-one stakeholder interviews

Industry lessons learned workshop

Documentation collection and review

1 2 3

Brion Energy CNRL Connacher Oil ConocoPhillips Husky Energy Imperial MEG Energy Nexen Shell Suncor Energy Syncrude

Enbridge Inter Pipeline TransCanada

Figure 2 - Industry Lessons Learned Participants

Producers

Energy Infrastructure

ATCO Bouchier Group CEDA Civeo Clear Harbors Finning Horizon North Noralta Lodge

Service Providers

AER OSCA

Others

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3. Regional Prepardeness

3.1 Introduction

While select industry stakeholders had a mutual aid agreement with the municipality and had worked together to respond during the 2011 Richardson Backcountry fire, the scale of the Horse River wildfire was unprecedented. It spanned over both Crown and regional jurisdictions, crossing into the urban centre, testing the region’s preparedness and ability to respond to such a large-scale urban interface natural disaster.

There was a resounding acknowledgement that industry’s involvement in the response made a significant impact in supporting fire suppression and keeping people safe. The pre-existence of an industry alliance group, OSCA, which had a special focus on working with Aboriginal communities and regional health initiatives, catalyzed the ability for industry to work quickly with nearby communities and Alberta Health Services to support the community’s emergency response needs and serve as a natural communication channel for these stakeholder groups.

As the region is currently in a state of recovery, there is encouraging support across industry, the RMWB and the GoA (AER) to turn the recommendations in this report into tangible actions that moves the dialogue forward to enhance the region’s emergency preparedness.

3.2 Overview of Main “Lessons Learned”

Common findings and observations can be grouped into five “lessons learned” themes. These theme are interconnected and highlight key recommendations to incorporate in future regional preparedness:

1. Evacuation Logistics and Critical Infrastructure2. ICS and Training 3. AER Coordination 4. Industry Liaison Role 5. Communication and Information Sharing

Each theme has “lessons learned” recommendations that are driven from industry expertise and applicable case studies. While it is critical to reflect on lessons when identifying improvement opportunities, this effort has attempted to create further momentum through the support of a cross-industry groups that has identified specific actions that can be taken to move each recommendation forward.

Although the likelihood of another disaster of this magnitude occurring is unknown, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects an increase in greenhouse gases to boost temperatures over most land surfaces, which could increase the frequency of natural disasters such as forest fires. The International Disaster Database supports this trend that demonstrates a steady increase in the number of globally reported disasters, with 2015 representing an approximate 250 per cent increase from 1980 reported disasters. Additionally, Climate Central analysis shows that since the 1950s, wildfire seasons have become 40 per cent longer. Given the scale of critical infrastructure in a region surrounded by boreal forests, taking actions to increase regional preparedness should be a top priority for all stakeholders.

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3.3 Findings, Recommendations and Case Studies

3.3.1 Evacuation Logistics and Critical Infrastructure

Situational Context

Beginning on May 3, industry incident management teams worked to manage resources and safely evacuate members of the community. While some industry infrastructure was quickly used to support evacuation, this effort was slowed by unclear provincial guidance and lack of awareness of the criteria used to trigger evacuation.

There was a sentiment among several stakeholders that the mandatory evacuation should have been triggered sooner and that Alberta Agriculture and Forestry (AAF) could have communicated more actively with the RMWB in the days leading up to the fire. Additionally, feedback suggests that if industry had been more actively engaged in the initial Regional Emergency Operations Centre (REOC) that was established on May 1, 2016, organizations could have been proactive in informing employees of the risks and recommended precautionary measures. This, combined with varying site-to-site evacuation triggers, created confusion and worried some employees and contractors when they first heard of the evacuations.

In addition to these challenges, a key pain point for industry was trying to understand the process and prioritization criteria for roadblock entry. In several instances, industry gained approval to pass but upon arrival, was turned away. While frustrating, this was most concerning when essential and critical industry resources were required to safely maintain or shutdown operations. Many organizations had valuable, heavy-duty resources to assist with firefighting that was left idle.

While industry was able to protect the integrity of its critical infrastructure, there is an opportunity to get a clearer picture of what critical infrastructure exists in the area. A single source map of critical assets and camps was not initially available, which required reactive action to pull together the information from several stakeholders during the response. In the future, there is an opportunity for government to leverage industry’s deep knowledge of potential risk impact to their critical infrastructure during an emergency (i.e. awareness of facility scales and full GIS datasets), to ensure all critical assets are clearly outlined in the response plans.

Lastly, safety and traffic on the single road in and out of Fort McMurray was consistently brought up as a major bottleneck and safety risk, together with the lack of services available along the highway, such as rest stops, washrooms, and fuel stations. The existence of several airstrips eased some pressure from the highway once the flights were coordinated. The RMWB closed the main airport but did not take control of other industry airstrips. In absence of central control, people used personal relationships and social media to communicate evacuation options, instead of going through a formal queue that could be coordinated and prioritized by a single source.

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Lessons Learned Recommendations

1. The RMWB, with supporting agencies, should develop logistics and evacuation protocol within the ICS structure with clear evacuation triggers issued from a single, predetermined decision maker within the ICS. The plan should include a formal process and criteria to prioritize what resources should be allowed to pass during a roadblock. This work can be mobilized through an existing cross-stakeholder committee (i.e. starting with members of the mutual aid agreement and expanding out to ensure diversity of representation).

2. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) Guidance document on wildfires should be reviewed to ensure there is consistent criteria to assess evacuation, air quality, and shelter in place, with consideration to account for variability in operations. This guidance should be communicated and referenced in relevant industry and government Emergency Response Plans (ERPs).

3. The region should assess the opportunity to enhance existing infrastructure to mitigate future evacuation risks, while contributing to economic development of the region (i.e. building secondary road access, river access transport, emergency bridges, additional airfields). Additionally, there are numerous airstrips in the region that should be integrated into the regional response plan and assessed for landing certifications. The municipality and industry must work with the provincial and federal governments to assess the cost/benefit of infrastructure enhancements.

4. Industry and the GoA should work together to define what constitutes critical infrastructure (i.e. hospitals, Aostra Road, pipelines, communications infrastructure, aerodromes) and develop criteria to guide response prioritization. This output should be integrated into regional emergency planning.

Additionally, a comprehensive up-to-date list of key stakeholder contacts and an active map of critical infrastructure should be developed and maintained within a GIS platform to aid in more accurate situational awareness.

The confidentiality of the information and ongoing process to maintain data accuracy must be addressed. Initial steps should assess what information is already provided to the GoA (i.e. annual wildfire plans) and what gaps exist to ensure complete, accurate regional industry information can be shared with the appropriate agency as required.

Case Studies

Hurricane Katrina: A key lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina is the importance of government and industry collaboration in developing a National Response Plan (NRP) to be able to rapidly assess the impact of a disaster on critical infrastructure.

There needs to be a coordinated effort between all levels of government and the private sector to develop a modern, flexible and transparent logistics system that has the capacity to conduct large-scale logistical operations.

Slave Lake Wildfires: The Slave Lake wildfires lessons learned highlighted the need to effectively communicate local plans to all stakeholders and clearly identify evacuation protocols, communication mechanisms, critical resources and infrastructure. In addition, evacuation orders should be clear, timely and issued from a single, predetermined decision maker within the local incident command structure.

Calgary Floods: During the Calgary Floods, the existence of a permanent Calgary Emergency Management Department that focused on year-round emergency mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery was a key contributor to an effective response.

The department proactively interacted with key stakeholders, had a clear understanding of available resources and capabilities in the region and organized training and exercises for the city.

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3.3.2 Incident Command System (ICS) and Training

Situational Context

Several of the large companies impacted by the fire had an ICS in place which aided in their internal coordination and response. However, there was no overarching regional ICS framework, along with varying levels of ICS training, which created challenges when coordinating response activities across different stakeholder groups.

Without a regional framework, it was challenging to gain an accurate understanding of the key stakeholders involved, their roles, which processes to follow, and what resources were available – at times leading to confusion and an underutilization of resources and expertise. In addition, some stakeholders had different, unconnected emergency management systems across business units which created internal coordination challenges.

Stakeholders recognize that developing a consistent ICS framework across the region can be challenging for numerous reasons, including the financial cost for smaller organizations to implement and organize frequent training, however key elements of consistency (described further below) would have allowed for better coordination across industry and government.

Lastly, as part of ICS, stakeholders commented that the unified command system could have been improved. The existence of both the POC and REOC made it difficult to understand the chain of command and roles andresponsibilities as outlined in an ICS framework.

In summary, while individual ICS and training strategies were crucial for many organizations in their internal response, a lack of a regional ICS framework that was understood and trained to, along with unclear unified command, challenged cross-stakeholder collaboration.

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Lessons Learned Recommendations

1. While it is unrealistic to mandate ICS at the federal or provincial level, the province could be proactive in identifying elements of ICS that, if applied and adopted consistently, would drive the greatest value in terms of better coordination during response.

Many of industry’s leading emergency management professional believe there is an opportunity for the AEMA to work with industry to collectively develop a framework for how ICS is implemented, used and trained.

The framework would have a unified training strategy that highlights common learning objectives and role-specific training. This overarching training strategy can guide joint training and exercises, which would foster positive working relationships among stakeholders and reduce the overall training costs. This recommendation can be moved forward through an inclusive process that brings together a subset of industry emergency management professionals, the GoA, RMWB, and Canada Task Force 2.

2. The GoA and relevant municipalities with a high degree of industry activity (i.e. RMWB, Strathcona County, etc.) should have a fully implemented ICS that clearly outlines and incorporates the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders such as the industry liaison. If pre-determined individuals are selected for specific roles, they can be engaged in regional exercises with the government to better establish lines of communication and

ways of working.

3. A unified command system acts as the overarching point of coordination with multiple reporting area commands. Based on this framework, there is opportunity for the GoA and RMWB to assess the possibility of incorporating a unified command system into their respective ICS. This would clarify the chain of command during response by outlining roles and responsibilities and developing a well-defined set of criteria for who participates as liaisons.

4. There is an opportunity for the GoA to assess the value of providing financial incentives and assistance for organizations who adopt and implement the ICS framework and training strategy.

Case Studies

Slave Lake Wildfires: A number of challenges during the Slave Lake wildfires were due to stakeholders not fully implementing ICS or properly training key personnel. It is critical to have a single, fully-implemented ICS that defines roles and accountabilities for all key parties. A clear hierarchy for decision making and information management between local and provincial emergency operations is important, as well as ensuring it is well-communicated and understood how each stakeholder group (i.e. municipality, community, industry and elected officials) are tied into the system.

Calgary Floods: The lessons learned from the Calgary Floods highlight joint training and exercises as critical components that contributed to increasing the emergency management capacity of key stakeholders prior to the floods. This effort also supported the development of strong working relationships between each party, which ultimately enabled improved coordination and collaboration during the response.

California Wildfires: ICS is critical in a large-scale disaster when multiple agencies need to work together and work through potentially conflicting lines of authority and competing goals. In California, the unified command structure is a key enabler for coordinating activities across multiple stakeholder group. A unified command is difficult to establish in the spur of the moment, only through training and exercises can stakeholders establish the necessary relationships and test written plans to implement a unified command effectively during an emergency.

3.3.3 Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) Coordination

Situational Context

In the early days of the fire, industry set up daily communications between organizations to discuss priority issues and share information on the evolving emergency. Within the first week, the AER also established its role as a single point of contact between industry and provincial agencies.

The AER played an important role in providing situational information, channeling and responding to industry requests through its daily teleconference, as well as aiming to filter regulator requests provided to industry.

In addition to the industry-wide calls, the AER set up one-on-one calls with individual producers to provide the space to address company-specific questions. Feedback from industry suggest this focused role was invaluable to communicate critical updates and limit duplicative or contradictory government agency requests. A prime example of how this functioned effectively is when the AER was able to provide direct and clear messaging that industry could take whatever firebreak action was necessary to protect critical assets from the encroaching wildfire (albeit delayed in timing).

While the importance of a single point of contact was validated in the response, many stakeholders highlighted that the jurisdiction of the AER was unclear, especially for organizations who were unfamiliar with the AER (i.e. pipelines and service firms), or those that sat within the REOC. Additionally, the effectiveness of the AER was initially delayed as the role was not clearly mapped out or understood by all. Lastly, information provided by the AER was often historical rather than forward-looking, which limited the usefulness in building greater situational awareness.

Lastly, the initial decision to have AER serve as the sole industry representative within the POC while logical in its reasoning, was proven to be significantly more effective when combined with an industry role. Rationale for the industry role, while expanded on later, was centered on the essential knowledge industry had of the critical assets, processes and network that are required to effectively respond to industry requirements and support the broader regional response efforts.

In summary, the general sentiment was that the AER did a commendable job at coordinating producer-related efforts and responding to requests given the circumstances. In collaboration with AER representation, four recommendations have been made.

AER was a contributing member of the industry lessons learned workshop and after receiving the group’s feedback on recommendations, has provided its response to each of the recommendations below.

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Lessons Learned Recommendations

1. The AER mandate, jurisdiction and decision-making authority requires further definition, validation and socialization to ensure there is a clear role that builds on the Petroleum Industry Support Plan and allows for seamless interface in future emergencies.

AER Response

• The AER’s mandate is clearly defined in its empowering legislation, and we have disseminated a lot of information clarifying our jurisdiction as we perform various functions in striving to achieve that mandate. For example to assist in the realization of the safe development of hydrocarbon resources we have published informational summaries such as - “Release Reporting Requirements,” “Emergency Planning, Preparedness, and Response” and ”Responding to an Energy Incident,” all which can be viewed on our website.

• All actions taken by the AER when responding to the consequences of any incident, emergency or otherwise, will first be commensurate with our jurisdiction and second will support our GoA response partners. As correctly stated in the workshop recommendations, the specifics of our participation will always be based on the circumstances and will adapt to the changing situation.

• If a broad strategy is the most effective response tactic, then the AER will issue an industry-wide information bulletin. During the FMM wildfire the AER released four industry-wide information bulletins.

2. There is an opportunity to further clarify how the AER role/mandate can better incorporate and respond to the needs of pipelines and service firms if they are required to interface with the AER as a single point of contact.

AER Response

• As mentioned in response to Recommendation #1, all duty holders conducting activities or operating facilities under AER jurisdiction will receive general and specific information related to an ongoing response through the most appropriate communication media.

• Generally speaking, all AER communication with entities outside its jurisdiction, such as service firms, is through the AER regulated companies who have contracted a service firm or through specific associations, such as a mutual aid group, that the AER and a service firm are contributors.

3. The balance between minimizing the environmental footprint of oil sands production and ensuring appropriate forest fire setback limits (especially for in-situ assets) requires consideration to determine if any changes are required to ensure the industry is adequately prepared for all potential hazards (i.e. fires coming not only from within plant site, but also outside of the plant). This effort may involve understanding how to integrate FireSmart into footprint regulation.

AER Response

• A Restrictive Vegetation Control (RVC) easement, issued under the New Public Land Administration Regulation, as a fire guard would be a better buffer disposition than increasing the size of an existing Mineral Surface Lease (MSL) or a Miscellaneous Lease disposition for fire prevention purposes. RVC are non-exclusive rights, while MSLs are exclusive rights and occupancy status which could potentially allow area and access to be utilized for purposes other than vegetation control. RVCs would have increased oversight over the vegetation control process to ensure that they are in line with FireSmart principles.

4. AER guidance is required to direct industry on how it should move forward to account for any actions taken during the response (i.e. firebreak management), which was outstanding as of November 2016.

AER Response

• The AER issued Bulletin 2016-30 requiring duty holders to report activities conducted in response to the FMM wildfires as a follow-up to the conditional approval allowing duty holders to protect their facilities and infrastructure at risk of being in the fire path. This information is required to determine what, if any, authorization is required.

Beyond these specific recommendations and responses, the AER has voiced support to work with industry in efforts to collaborate with the AEMA to advocate for a defined role for an AER representative as well as an Industry Liaison representative within the POC during relevant responses.

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3.3.4 Industry Liaison Role

Situational Context

At the onset of the fire there was no clearly defined role for industry to perform, which resulted in a lack of integration across stakeholders, underutilization of industry resources, and poor situational awareness. In past emergencies, a predefined industry liaison role was a useful conduit of information between government agencies and industry, in addition to providing valuable industry expertise in emergency management.

After substantial negotiations with the province, industry obtained a seat on the POC after the first week, followed by an official seat in the REOC in the second week. Further discussion with stakeholders uncovered that there was an industry member in the REOC in the very early days as a mutual aid representative, which later turned into an industry liaison role. In future scenarios, clarity from the beginning could be achieved by having a clear industry representation model in place and ready to act from day one.

Once industry secured an official seat in these operations centers, roles and responsibilities were being defined in real time, in tandem with the situation creating some challenges in the team’s ability to effective develop situational awareness and respond to requests. Initially, the industry liaison role in the POC was passive as the team was given guidance that all communication and activity required pass-through the AER. It was not always clear who to turn to for specific information and at times, the role of the industry liaison versus the AER was confused, along with the difference between the industry liaison role in the POC versus the REOC.

Once roles and responsibilities became clearer and processes started to take shape, the industry liaison role was able to serve as a useful channel of information and expertise. The industry liaisons demonstrated the value of a predefined role through the diverse expertise, resources and network that was brought to the response. Additionally, the strong existing relationships between the provincial government, municipality and industry supported the region’s ability tocollaborate in a crisis situation.

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Lessons Learned Recommendations

1. An industry liaison role should be defined as part of the ICS structure for relevant critical operations centers that are activated during emergencies (i.e. POC and REOC). This role should be in place, ready and trained so that industry can appropriately interface with key agencies during the initial hours of a response.

Industry should consider how to best influence and engage the AEMA in formalizing this role into the government emergency response framework. It is important to make sure that all key industry stakeholders are represented (i.e. producers, camps, pipelines) if relevant in the situation.

Case Studies

Hurricane Katrina: A significant capability for emergency response resided in NGOs. During Hurricane Katrina, the private sector made substantial contributions to the response, however, the government did not always make effective use of these contributions because it had not effectively planned for integrating them into the overall response plan.

Slave Lake Wildfires: The after action reviews of the wildfires highlighted external resources and expertise as essential components of making quick decisions during a rapidly changing emergency. To ensure that all perspectives, experiences and resources are fully utilized, the right mix of stakeholders needs to be identified and engaged during regional emergency planning.

California Wildfires: During the course of major disasters, requirements will change as the incident itself changes and it may become necessary to have representatives from different stakeholder groups assume various leadership positions. Scenario planning better identifies who these representatives may be for a given scenario, allowing early engagement to ensure a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

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3.3.5 Communication and Information Sharing

Situational Context

In the time leading up to the evacuation and during the response, industry used two primary avenues of communication to keep employees and other stakeholders informed; phone calls and emails.

Numerous multi-stakeholder calls were set up by key representatives in the region such as the AER, POC, REOC and Multi-Industry Committee (MIC) to share information with one another. These calls, while valuable to gather and share information, occurred in silos and were not inclusive of all key stakeholders, creating disparity between those who were closer to the situation and organizations that found it more challenging to get updates. In conjunction with daily calls, numerous emails were sent between various stakeholders. These emails contained useful information, however was at times overlooked due to the volume of emails exchanged. Overall, these two channels of communication provided invaluable insight but lacked effective coordination through a common operating picture, and did not factor in the possibility of communication systems being affected.

At times, there was also conflicting perspectives on what critical information should be shared, when to share it and with whom. Some stakeholders felt the AAF did not provide as much information about the fires as was made available during the 2011 Richardson Backcountry fires. Due to the lack of information that was shared, some industry organizations made the decision to conduct their own fire modeling to inform critical decision-making as to whether or not to shut down production and evacuate. Once this industry data was collected, it was shared with other stakeholders.

While industry was able to extract information from multiple sources, such as social media, the overall lack of a single source of truth or common operating picture made it challenging to reliably find the critical data industry needed to make important business decisions in a timely manner.

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During the first 48 hours of the

Horse River wildfires 104,421 tweets were made about the fires #ymmfire

Source: Brandwatch.com

Lessons Learned Recommendations

1. A Common Operating Picture (command and control tool to provide situational awareness) enabled by a joint information centre, should be developed to ensure a single source of trusted and validated information during response.

The platform would enable clearer situational awareness by providing all key stakeholders access to critical information, real-time data and updates. Industry should assess how it can support the GoA in collectively developing this common operating picture.

2. A regional emergency communication strategy should be developed as part of the regional preparedness plan in collaboration with key stakeholders such as government agencies, industry, First Nations and rural communities.

3. Contingency plans should be developed to manage the impact of cell towers going down during an emergency. There is an opportunity for industry and government to work together to identifying what technologies could be leveraged to increase preparedness and address the vulnerability of cell towers.

4. There is an opportunity to evaluate the use of social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook at Work to support the provision of reliable real-time information to the public.

5. Industry should work with the government and RMWB to assess the feasibility of streamlining the daily stakeholder calls to reduce duplication of effort and ensure consistency, accuracy and timeliness of information shared with stakeholders during response.

Case Studies

Hurricane Katrina: A key learning from Hurricane Katrina was the need for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enable the public communication plan with operational capabilities to deploy coordinated public affairs teams during a crisis. An essential component of emergency preparedness is having an integrated public communications plan to better inform, guide and reassure the public, before, during and after a catastrophe.

Slave Lake Wildfires: A key lesson learned from the Slave Lake wildfires highlighted that information flow cannot be fully controlled during an emergency, especially in the day and age of the internet and social media.

However, having a clear communication strategy in place prior to an emergency occurring from a trusted and consistent source can help defuse rumors, speculations and misunderstandings that often arise during emergencies through social media platforms and word of mouth.

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4. Conclusion

This report has identified several recommendations to consider as part of regional preparedness planning with the goal of increasing the region’s ability to safely and effectively respond to a future large scale emergency. Two crucial recommendations serve as the connecting thread across all five lessons learned themes:

1. The RMWB should develop a comprehensive regional response plan in collaboration with all stakeholders in the region, including industry which is a critical community partner, employer and investor in the region. Once developed, this plan should be reviewed and exercised collectively on an annual basis.

The diverse landscape of stakeholders and business operations in the RMWB creates a unique opportunity to build a regional response plan that takes advantage ofthe multi-stakeholder perspectives, expertise and resources that each party can bring to the table during an emergency response.

This collective input can be built into a robust plan that aligns to a common ICS framework and training strategy with defined roles and responsibilities, clear lines of communication, and a common operating picture for information sharing.

2. A best practice model for collaboration across government, industry, and community can be built from the relationships developed during the response to strengthen the pace and quality of community recovery and preparedness planning. Time spent today on proactive collaboration will be paid forward during emergency situations and positively contribute to the economic recovery of the region.

While collaboration is challenging to make work and often fails due to misaligned objectives, poor communication, funding or prioritization, the region has a real advantage in its ability to advance meaningful dialogue, common agendas and priorities based on the trust and relationships that were developed during the response.

The need to build on the strengths of each party, continue dialogue and identify how to reinforce positive relationships into everyday ways of working is essential for timely recovery and preparedness planning. Organizations such as OSCA, who had strong, pre-established

relationships with industry, the municipality, First Nations and provincial bodies, proved its worth in terms of its ability to quickly make connections and catalyze action during the response. Further exploration of these existing organizations and forums that are in place and can support future collaboration quickly without reinventing the wheel should be considered along with examples of best practice cross-stakeholder coordination that exists in regions such as the Northeast Region Community Awareness Emergency Response (mutual aid emergency response association) and the Sundre Petroleum Operators Group.

While it is important to identify opportunities for improvement in emergency response, it is equally important to reflect on the successes of the response. The region should take pride in how government, industry, employees, community members, volunteers, First Nations, firefighters, and many others worked together to evacuate more than 80,000 people safely. With millions of people watching worldwide as the disaster unfolded, the courageous actions of every individual involved in the response exemplified the meaning of ‘Alberta Strong.’

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Appendix A: Bibliography

EM-DAT (25th January 2016). The OFDA/CRED - International Disaster Database. Retrieved November 21, 2016 from www.emdat.be.

FEMA “Operational Lessons Learned in Disaster Response” June 2015. 72 pp. Web Document

KPMG. “Lesser Slave lake Regional Urban Interface Wildfire - Lessons Learned.” 6 November 2012. 237pp. Web Document.

Mertz, E. (2016, July 07). Top 10 most costly disasters in Canadian history for insurers. Retrieved November 21, 2016, from http://globalnews.ca/news/2810070/top-10-most-costly-disasters-in-canadian-history- for-insurers/

MNP “Review and Analysis of the Government of Alberta’s Response to and Recovery from 2013 Floods” 1 July 2015. 135 pp. Web Document

Morgan, G. (2016, July 7). A whopping $3.58 billion: Fort McMurray fires the costliest event ever for Canadian insurers. Retrieved November 13, 2016, from http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/fort-mcmurray-fires-cost-insurers-a-whopping-3-6-billion-the-largest-ever-in-canadian-history

The White House. “The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina - Lessons Learned.” February 2006. 217pp. Web Document.

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Appendix B: Abbreviations

Abbreviation Meaning

AER Alberta Energy Regulator

AAF Alberta Agriculture and Forestry

AEMA Alberta Emergency Management Agency

AHS Alberta Health Services

CAPP Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

DHS Department of Homeland Security

ECC Emergency Control Center

ERP Emergency Response Plan

FMM Fort McMurray

GIS Geographic Information Systems

GoA Government of Alberta

ICS Incident Command System

IRWG Industry Recovery Working Group

MIC Multi-Industry Committee

MSL Mineral Surface Lease

NRCAER Northeast Region Community Awareness Emergency Response

NRP National Response Plan

OSCA Oil Sands Community Alliance

POC Provincial Operating Center

REOC Regional Emergency Operating Center

RFID Radio Frequency Identification Device

RMWB Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo

RVC Restrictive Vegetation Control

SPOG Sundre Petroleum Operators Group

NGO Non-Government Organization

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