First contingent of Kiwi firefighters return home from Canada

24 August 2024

Fire and Emergency New Zealand has welcomed back its first contingent of firefighters from Canada, who have been supporting the efforts to control hundreds of wildfires across British Columbia for the last five weeks.

The seven-person incident management team left New Zealand on 21 July and arrived home on Saturday morning. They have been filling specialist roles of helicopter coordinators, division supervisors, operations branch directors and agency liaison.

Team members were assigned to support several fires across the province during their deployment, including the Shuswap Complex in Invermere, the Hullcar fire near Vernon and multiple fires being managed from Castlegar.

Fire and Emergency National Commander Russell Wood says that New Zealand has reciprocal agreements with several countries. 

"International deployments provide valuable experience for our personnel that help build our capability to manage large wildfires at home," he says.

New Zealand firefighters are still deployed to Alberta, Canada, and another contingent of incident management specialists is working in the United States’ Pacific North West.