Each province has it’s own forest fire fighting resources which includes fire fighters, specialists, equipment, and logistical support. Each province can usually manage incidents themselves, but occasionally the number and complexity of incidents exhausts their ability to respond to and support new and large fires. As previously mentioned, each province has agreements in place to share resources. Typically they would have limited agreements with neighbouring provinces and states (called compacts) or they can submit requests to the Canadian Interagency Fire Center in Winnipeg who will do the “shopping” for them. Assistance could be in the form of fire fighters, air tankers and bird dogs, equipment such as pumps and hose, as well as logistical support. I was once sent to British Columbia as a helibase manager.
I see that, today, Quebec is receiving 140 fire fighters, 1 agency rep, and 7 technical specialists from South Korea… that has to be first.
For anyone that is interested, you can get more daily information about forest fires across Canada (including fire fighter movement) check out the “Daily Situation Report” at CIFFC.net. You can also find a map of active fires across Canada there. If you have any questions about what some of the information means, let me know and I’ll do my best to explain it.
