By Cheryl Jahn

Australian firefighters land in PG

Jul 20, 2023 | 3:23 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – As of today, there 383 active wildfires in BC. BC frequently calls on the help of other nations to lend a hand and, locally, the Australians are here to help.

“So all up since the request sort of came through, we’ve had just under 700. So it’s about 20 arduous, 21 arduous crews,” explains David Sayce, Forest Fire Management, Victoria, Australia. “That’s not just necessarily in B.C. that we started in Alberta and obviously as a threat sort of moved and the fires have moved. We’ve been pre-positioned.”

Sayce says while the basic premise of firefighting is the same. In his words, ‘Putting wet stuff on hot stuff,’ there are some significant differences between fighting a fire in Australia and fighting one here and that’s the type of fuel source.

“And that’s essentially the difference. I mean, in firefighting, we use the same command and control systems. We use the same sort of tactics when it comes to putting fires out. So we remove fuel, we burn out, we create mineralized trails or dirt so that fire can’t burn and we put wet stuff on hot stuff. But of course, the difference here is the fuel types where we’ve got eucalypts back in Australia. You’ve got a lot of pine here, which of course wrecks completely differently with fire.”

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There are mutual aid agreements between Canada and various different countries, overseen by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Association.

Australia is no stranger to forest fires, called bushfires there. The fires of 2019 and 2020 in Australia were unprecedented, much like the fire season in BC this season. So why do hundreds of firefighters travel halfway across the globe?

“We do this to return the favor. We’ve got a very strong relationship with Canada. You know, the last two decades, there’s been a lot of deployments. And so we’re really here to help you out in a time of need and really return the favor for whom we had a very bad season a few years ago. And so being able to help out is, you know, it’s what we all do. So how I mean, like you said, it’s just putting wet stuff on hot stuff.”

But he says the stay will be shortlived, as things are heating up Down Under.