Nova Scotia firefighters leave for B.C. to help control wildfires (4 photos)
Posted Aug 20, 2018 03:53:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
With files from the Canadian Press
It was an early start Monday morning for a 21-person crew heading to B.C. to help control wildfires in that province.
The Nova Scotia wildfire fighters arrived at the main terminal of Halifax Stanfield International Airport at 5:30 a.m. to start their journey west.
Manager of forest protection for Nova Scotia's Department of Lands and Forestry, Jim Rudderham, said the BC Wildfire Service will assign the crew when they land.
“They're going to the airport in Prince George, that's where they were requested to be sent,” he explained. “From there they'll take them wherever they need them.”
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre connects all the provinces and territories to help them pool resources when wildfires become difficult to handle.
Rudderham says the centre asked Nova Scotia on Friday to provide a crew.
“They're going to be there for 14 days, they're going to work long hours every day and at the end of 14 days they'll be quite happy to get home.”
Wildfire crews in B.C. report some headway was made over the weekend, but thick smoke continues to blanket the province, creating challenges for communities far from any flames.
A grey haze cut visibility and disrupted air traffic in Kamloops and Kelowna over the weekend, but the website of both airports show travel has not been affected Monday.
The air quality health index shows a very high health risk in areas from Whistler, Squamish and Nanaimo to the Fraser Valley, Okanagan, Castlegar and parts of Metro Vancouver.
The BC Wildfire Service says about 550 fires are burning, but there weren't many lightning strikes over the weekend and that gave crews a chance to concentrate on some of the 54 blazes currently threatening people or property.
The largest fire continues to be the 850-square-kilometre blaze moving north from Fraser Lake toward Fort St. James and officials say an increase in wildfire activity in southeastern B.C. is also a concern.
