Manitoba firefighter dies in ATV crash

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This article was published 12/07/2022 (1214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A firefighter-in-training has died after being injured on duty.

Tyler Riley Manych was training for the Manitoba Wildfire Service in The Pas when he was critically injured on Monday in an accident involving an all-terrain vehicle, a social-media post from the Thompson Professional Firefighters Association said.

He died on Tuesday.

The tragedy is another reminder of the danger faced by firefighters, said Alex Forrest, president of the Manitoba Professional Firefighters Association.

“This is a tragedy for not only the firefighters of Manitoba, who will be mourning a loss of one of their own, but this is a tragedy for every citizen in the province of Manitoba because this individual was training to do his job representing the jurisdiction that he was trained to protect,” he said.

Manych will be memorialized like any other firefighter who has died on the job.

“I have attended multiple funerals for firefighters who have died while training,” Forrest said.

Wildlife firefighters often begin the job while young, and training can put them in dangerous situations, Forrest said. Manych’s death will be investigated by the wildfire service and the fire department that was training him.

“Firefighters will be fully co-operative, will be fully involved in that process, because we want to find out exactly how this occurred as much as anybody. We want to find out how we can avoid this in the future,” he said.

The United Firefighters of Winnipeg union has recorded 92 firefighters who have died while working, or of illnesses related to the nature of firefighting, since 1921.

—Staff