Friday, September 04, 2020

2020 wildfire season: Thank-you Canada and U.S. Army for helping fight wildfires in California

Thanks to Bill Gabbert's fine reporting on August 28th, I did know about that the U.S. Army announced last week that they were sending 200 troops to fight wildfires in California. First there was a training period to learn about wildland firefighting for a few days ending on September 30th. See this September 3rd tweet from the U.S. Army North with a short video of members of the I-Corps completing their training, they are practicing working with hoses. A special thank-you to all the U.S. Army troops helping fight wildfires in California. Your service will not be forgotten. Stay safe.

Again, thanks to Bill Gabbert, I did know that the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) had asked Canada and Australia to send wildland firefighters to help fight wildfires in California, Bill writes on September 2nd that the Canadian Province of Quebec is sending six crews of twenty persons each while the request to Australia is still pending. As Bill wrote on September 3rd, the crews from Quebec arrived in the U.S. on September 2nd and received training in the use of fire shelters before being deployed to the North Complex in California. 

I was a little behind in my reading, so I only learned this morning about the wildland firefighters from Quebec, Canada coming to help fight wildfires in California. I used to spend a part of each summer in northern New England not far from the border with Quebec, so Quebec's deployment has a special meaning to me. Thank-you Quebec. Stay safe.

Note, after reading Bill Gabbert's reporting on the mobilization of U.S. Army Troops and the deployment of wildland firefighters from Canada to wildfires in California, I did find some reporting on these events on the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) Twitter Page, see for example their September 3rd post. Since Bill's reporting contained much the same information and I was unable to fully embed the NIFC tweets, I opted not to included the NIFC. But for those who are so inclined the NIFC twitter page is a good resource with lots of good information about current wildfires burning, wildland fire safety, deployments, etc. So I wanted to give @NIFC_Fire a shout out for their nice twitter page.

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