Incident Management Team getting ready to help fight Canadian wildfires

On Sunday, Fire and Emergency New Zealand along with the Department of Conservation and Forest Protection Services will send seven Incident Management Team members to assist Canada with their wildfire response in British Columbia.  

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre sent a formal request for assistance to Fire and Emergency late last week. 

The situation in British Columbia is significant, with 157 wildfires in the province as of Friday morning 19 July. There are 685 active wildfires across Canada.   

The Alpha deployment will consist of one agency liaison representative, two helicopter coordinators, two division supervisors and two operations branch directors. 

"We’re happy to provide support to our Canadian colleagues as they experience another difficult wildfire season," Fire and Emergency National Commander Russell Wood says. 

"In addition to helping the Canadian wildfire teams, deploying overseas is a valuable development opportunity for those involved. It gives our people experience in different environments which they can bring back and apply to New Zealand wildfires,” Russell Wood says. 

This will be Fire and Emergency’s 72nd international wildfire deployment since 2000. This number does not include non-wildfire deployments, such as for natural disasters. 

We have deployed 1509 firefighters internationally to wildfires since 2000. 

International deployments are an important part of what we do, supporting our partner countries in their time of need, as they would help us if we ever needed it.