Vernon firefighters join battle against Australian wildfires

Three wildland firefighters from Vernon have been deployed overseas to assist Australia with its ravaging wildfires.

This weekend, they were among 20 more B.C. firefighters deployed, said Erika Berg, communications officer with the Kamloops Fire Centre.

This adds to a growing number of firefighters and emergency personnel who have been deployed from Canada to assist with the Australian wildfires.

Since the start of the wildfires in 2019,  the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre has reported that Canada has provided 172 firefighting personnel to Australia to three separate states

“British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Alberta, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Parks Canada have all contributed agency personnel,” the centre reported in a news release.

Record-breaking temperatures and droughts have fuelled massive wildfires across the country. More than roughly 800 million animals have been killed, according to the University of Sydney.

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