301 fire fighters and management from the South African Working on Fire programme have started to assemble in Johannesburg, Gauteng, from where they will be flying to Alberta, Canada, on Sunday, 29 May 2016, to assist the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) with their wildland fire suppression efforts.
This deployment of wildland fire fighters is the biggest South African deployment ever (outside of the army) to assist a foreign country.
Canada is currently experiencing challenging fires in particular in the Province of Alberta. There a number of priority fires that require human resources especially the Fort McMurray, Alberta fire with more than of 500,000 hectares already burnt.
Working on Fire’s national spokesman Linton Rensburg says a formal request has been received from the CIFFC for assistance to their international partners, including Working on Fire. This pending international deployment comes at the back of fire fighters from Working on Fire who have already been to Canada in 2015 where they assisted the authorities with fire suppression and prevention services.
The Canadians have chartered a Canadian Airways plane that will depart with the South African fire fighters on Sunday, 29 May 2016, at 6am.
In April Working on Fire held a National Deployment Bootcamp in Gauteng (pictured above) where 400 fire fighters received training to ensure that they were physically fit and ready for deployment.
“We also wanted to elevate the level of training to meet international standards, and in so doing, to raise the level of service they offer during deployments. Instructors from the WOF Training Academy conducted fitness drills and representatives from Canada demonstrated how Canadian water handling equipment works… As part of a resource sharing arrangement between Canadian fire fighting agencies and ourselves, the fire fighters will be deployed to Alberta, from where they will be dispatched to assist with the suppression of wildland fires in the surrounding forested areas. The wildland fire control effort and the supporting strategies are largely for forest fires in both remote areas and on the forest and rural land interface,” says Rensburg.
