By CKOM News Staff

Canada sends roughly 100 fire experts to help with blazes in Australia

Jan 6, 2020 | 2:41 PM

Almost 100 Canadians are hard at work in Australia helping to fight fires in New South Wales.

As of Monday, 95 Canadian fire experts had made the trip overseas. That included 11 from Saskatchewan, which sent three over the weekend in a third wave.

Melanie Morin, the information officer for the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, gave more details about their roles in battling the blazes to Gormley.

“We have operations officers and chiefs that are out there deciding tactics and strategy. We’ve got logistics, fire behaviour analysis, plans (and) aviation,” she explained.

No Canadians are working as front-line firefighters to extinguish the fire directly.

International Spotlight

P.A.'s Howe one of 4 Sask. born players named to Canada's World Junior roster

11h ago

National

Ottawa to remove 30% investment cap for Canadian pension funds

15h ago

Budget woes

Golf and curling centre faces grim season without financial boost

18h ago

The workers stay on deployment in Australia for a period between 30 and 38 days before returning home. The first batch of experts is to come back to Canada on Thursday.

Morin also explained why they’ve been given the assignment of travelling to fight fires.

“We have agreements with Australia. We also have agreements with New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico and the U.S.,” she said.

Those agreements also let Canada request the help of foreign fire experts.

“Australia has come to Canada four times prior,” Morin said. “Now, it’s the first time that we’ve been able to reciprocate.”