Hundreds of SA firefighters to assist with Canadian wildfires
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Hundreds of South African firefighters have answered the call from Canada to assist in battling wildfires in the province of Alberta.
The fires, which have been raging for more than a month, have led to the mass evacuation of the town of Fort McMurray and the destruction of more than 500 000 hectares of land.
Linton Rensburg of the government-sponsored Working On Fire programme, says outside of the army, this is the biggest South African deployment ever to assist a foreign country.
He says this past weekend Canadian authorities issued an international mayday with a specific request to them to send 300 firefighters from their programme.
Rensburg says the group of 301 will be flying out from OR Tambo International on Sunday on a Air Canada jet sent specially to pick them up. He says they expect the team to be deployed in Canada for a minimum of four weeks.
The fires, which have been raging for more than a month, have led to the mass evacuation of the town of Fort McMurray and the destruction of more than 500 000 hectares of land.
Linton Rensburg of the government-sponsored Working On Fire programme, says outside of the army, this is the biggest South African deployment ever to assist a foreign country.
He says this past weekend Canadian authorities issued an international mayday with a specific request to them to send 300 firefighters from their programme.
Rensburg says the group of 301 will be flying out from OR Tambo International on Sunday on a Air Canada jet sent specially to pick them up. He says they expect the team to be deployed in Canada for a minimum of four weeks.
