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Storm and Flood Assistance
A contingent of ACT firefighters have departed for Canada to support local firefighters during extremely challenging conditions early in the Northern Hemisphere fire season.
Australia has already sent two deployments to assist Canada, three ACT firefighters departed for Canada on 25 May and are already on the ground assisting local crews, while a second deployment of an additional 20 firefighters to assist their fatigued international colleagues departed 7 June.
These 10 ACT Rural Fire Service (ACTRFS) and 10 ACT Parkes and Conservation Service (PCS) members are part of a 100+ person contingent of Australian and New Zealand firefighters to be assisting field-based crews.
Simon May from the first deployment sent us this diary entry:
Had to travel Canberra, Brisbane, overnight Brisbane, Australian deployment briefing in Brisbane.
Flew Brisbane, Vancouver (14 Hours) then straight onto Edmonton (1.5 Hours).
Housed at a motel near the airport at Edmonton and briefed by the Alberta Wildfire Reps.
Issued F150's, Alberta Wildfire Kit and then given the opportunity to go the Walmart to buy a pillow and anything else we reckoned we needed.
Next day deployed to fire either as a single resource or full IMT.
Days are long. It's light from 4am till 11pm at night.
Four seasons in one day. Cold nights, hot days, strong winds at times and rain, hail and lightning. Just not enough to put the fire out.
Camp food is probably some of the best I've had in four overseas deployments.
Washing gets done every night for you, drop off end of day and ready for collection the next morning.
Roads, fire guards can become impassable even for F150's. They're using a mix of tracked vehicles, Hegglands, etc to transport ground crews in up the line each day, as well as helicopter insertions.
Ground crews have seen beavers, and lots of black bears and grizzlies, as well as moose and coyotes. No cougars or wolves as yet.
Lukas Tan from the 2nd deployment sent us this diary entry:
We are tasked to the Kimiwan complex near the town of Peace River, about 5 hours drive north of Edmonton.
The fire camp location is TBD, probably somewhere east of Peace River closer to the fire. The camp probably has WiFi.
Our NSW RFS step-cousins are heading 8 hours north and will be using ATV, tracked vehicles and a ferry. Other Australian crews in the current rotation are at another fire in the north, Kimiwan or one a little to the west of Edmonton.
We’ll be assigned our 4 “pickup trucks” later today – 5 crew members per vehicle. No separate vehicle for the STL, which was expected.
Tomorrow will be a travel day to the fire with shopping trip for pillows, Buckley’s cough syrup, pickle-flavoured potato chips, etc on the side.
Peanut butter M&Ms are not bad.
