Hundreds of South African firefighters to help fight Canadian bush fires

26 May 2016 | Admin Author

Working on Fire has announced that 301 of its firefighters are due to fly to Alberta in Canada on Sunday, to assist with fighting the devastating fires in the Fort McMurray area. Some 20 of them are from the Eastern Cape.

WOF spokesperson Linton Rensburg said the personnel had started to assemble in Johannesburg, ahead of their flight to Canada.

"This deployment of wildland fire fighters is the biggest South African deployment ever, apart from the army, to assist a foreign country," Rensburg said.

"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.

"The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) have sent a formal request 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 over there with fire suppression and prevention services," Rensburg said.

The Canadians authorities have chartered an Air Canada jet, which will depart with the South African fire fighters at 06h00 on Sunday.Rensburg said Working on Fire held a bootcamp in Gauteng in April, where 400 firefighters received training to ensure that they were physically fit and ready for deployment.

"We 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," Rensburg added.

Pictured below are images of WOF members during the boot camp in Gauteng in April
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