Firefighter from Merafong among those sent to Canada
The latest wildfires in Canada have made international headlines.
A firefighter from our area is part of the group sent to Canada to fight wildfires.
Peter Sesing, a firefighter based at the Working on Fire (WoF) Kishugu joint venture’s Abe Bailey Nature Reserve team, is one of more than 200 firefighters including management that were sent to Alberta to assist with firefighting and fire suppression efforts.
The news of fires in Canada made international headlines this week as the town Jasper had to be evacuated.
The South African group along with Sesing departed for Canada via a charter arranged by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) on July 26. The plane departed from the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport in Mbombela.
The deployment of our firefighters and management is expected to be stationed in Alberta for a period of 39 days, inclusive of traveling and rest days.
“This will be the sixth deployment by a WoF-team to Canada. Between 2015 and 2023, Working on Fire has been on five deployments to this country based on this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). These five deployments include the historic deployment of 860 firefighters and management in 2023, which was one of the largest deployments of international firefighters to Canada,” said WoF’s Stakeholders Relations Manager Linton Rensburg.
Before their departure, the team assembled at the Kishugu Training Academy in Mbombela for a three-day training camp as part of their final preparation.
The request for urgent assistance came from CIFFC in terms of the existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and South Africa. The MOU signed in 2019, provides for the exchange of wildland fire management resources between South Africa and Canada. It was put in place following two earlier deployments to Canada to suppress wildland fires in Alberta and Manitoba.
