QuickBits: Trust, Accessibility, Recovery and a Deep Dive into Canada's 2026 Wildfire Season

Tim Conrad (00:00)
Hello, it's Tim Conrad with a quick bits update from the Wildfires Floods and Chaos Communications podcast. Three recent episodes are now available on video. Episode 30 with Jen McEachen, Nobody Left Behind, Emergency Management Through an Accessibility Lens, includes an ASL interpreter. So please take time to watch that episode and share. So many good lessons in that time with Jen, which apply inside of Crisis and outside of it.

Episode 31 with Gary Stronach Survivor's Remorse and Rebuilding Community After the Porter's Lake Fire shows photos from my archives of this wildfire in Nova Scotia in 2008. This conversation with Gary also gives insight from the response all the way through to years of recovery. And watching episode 32 with Kiki Cloutier gives an inside look of policing. More on that episode in a moment.

an upcoming double episode, it's a deep dive into the 2026 wildfire season. You'll hear from an independent creator, a government communicator, and my analysis of the numbers from what was a short, concentrated, and destructive wildfire season in Canada. And it's also the first one where I saw AI take a very prominent role. Here's a preview with a clip from Loree Duczek.

Of the regional district of East Kootenay.

Loree Duczek (01:18)
And so obviously the most important thing for me is that we develop

trust and that isn't something that happens immediately. It's not something that is given. It's something that's earned. And so for the other 300 days of the year that we aren't maybe responding in the emergency operations center section, my team works really hard on building and earning that trust. And that really ties in directly to relationships. And so year over year and you know through an emergency, I always say people look at emergencies and they say that it's something that is like, that's just

a disaster and and I don't want to not focus on how serious emergency events are, but it also really creates opportunity. And when I say that, what I mean is if we handle an event poorly, it erodes trust, it breaks relationships, it creates

Tim Conrad (02:03)
Yeah. Yep.

Loree Duczek (02:04)
expectations from the public, reasonably so, about how things should be different. If we do our very best to keep those kind of core things in mind done properly, and there's always things we can do better.

But done properly, that experience will help build trust. It will help build those relationships.

Tim Conrad (02:20)
Listen and watch for the 2026 overview episode soon. A spooktacular October was the second best month of downloads ever. Thank you. And with that, the episode with Kiki Cloutier Trust, Trauma, and Transparency Behind the Badge of Modern Policing had the strongest start of any episode that I've produced so far. It's amazing. Thank you so much.

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This includes the recent issue, which has a few fake communicators getting in uh wicked trouble. One managed to work their way through youth organizations until they landed an academic role. Now they are charged with sexually exploiting children through that time. Another social media coordinator found themselves caught by posts they made which were misogynist and racist. Stop.

Getting swooned by shiny new people who tell you everything you want to hear. They are posers and hosers. Remember, communications is a profession with ethical standards, and that means that you want somebody in your corner telling you when your ideas are crap. I mean, let's be honest, sometimes they are. And you want somebody that's gonna tell you they're crap when nobody else will. Okay? We're here to protect your organization's reputation.

And yours too. I invite you to jump over to CanadianTraining.ca where there are lots of courses on many topics, and you can host your own courses if you want. Use code in all caps, COMMUNICATIONSPODCAST to get 30% off. Watch for a new operational communications 12-week course I will be starting soon. And this helps you to learn about a lot of the things where you waste time or

Quite frankly, have things set up in a way that makes a reputational issue down the road quite likely. So I'm gonna help you to really navigate some of this stuff and develop a really nice lean and mean operation that will work for you anytime, especially in crisis. The Wildfires, Floods, and Chaos Communications podcast is a production of Butterfly Effect Communications. Tap back soon for a new episode. Goodbye. Hear me later.