A third team of Tasmanian firefighting staff have been sent to Canada to assist with large-scale efforts to contain several hundred wildfires burning across the country.
Parks and Environment Minister Nick Duigan said Nic Deka, John Duggan and Catherine Charlesworth will join the Alberta wildfire response, bringing the total number of PWS staff deployed to Canada to 15.
“The trio, who are highly experienced in incident response management, will take up the roles of incident controller, deputy incident controller and logistics officer as part of a rotating roster,” he said.
“There are currently 800 active fires affecting 2.7 million hectares of the Canadian landscape, for local context this is just over one third of the area of Tasmania.”
“Our Canadian friends have come to our aid before and we are proud to be able to return the favour in their time of need.”
The firefighters will spend the next month in Canada.
