Fire and Emergency welcomes specialist team home from Canada

13 September 2023

 

Fire and Emergency has welcomed back its fifth group of personnel deployed to support our Canadian whānau during their devastating wildfire season.

Echo deployment looked a bit different from previous ones, as the request from Canada focused on providing relief to the local fire managers who have been doing extremely tough mahi since May.

Echo deployment consisted of three Divisional Supervisors, two Heavy Equipment Group Supervisors, one Air Operations Branch Director, one Helicopter Coordinator and one Area Representative. They have been situated across the Northwest Territories in Yellowknife, Fort Smith, and Hay River.

In all of these areas, they were dealing with evacuated communities and providing much appreciated specialist support. The crews in Fort Smith and Hay River were also facing fires over 450,000 hectares in size.

It can be hard to imagine the conditions in Canada as they differ so greatly to what we see in Aotearoa New Zealand. As an example, the closest major city to Yellowknife is Edmonton, which is a 24-hour drive.

Fire and Emergency has now deployed a total of 100 personnel, including people from the Department of Conservation and forestry companies, to assist with the wildfires in Canada .

There has been a decrease in fire activity in Canada and we don’t have further deployments planned, but we continue to monitor the situation.

Deployed Fire and Emergency crews have brought back invaluable knowledge and experience that will be extremely beneficial as we enter an El Niño summer which points to heightened fire danger across the motu during wildfire season.