UPDATED, February 13

The 30-day assignment for the United States wildland firefighters that are assisting with the fires in Australia should be coming to an end about now. A replacement group has been selected, but we have not heard if their assignment has been confirmed or if they are in route.

In the meantime, here are some photos from a fire some of the first group were on, sent to us by our friend Ion Worrell. I believe the gentleman in front of the big yellow McCleod is Bob Lippincott of the U.S. Forest Service.

Ion describes the truck, above, like this:

The vehicle is a Toyota Landcruiser Tray 4X4
Crew of 02
Water capacity of 400 litres / 20 litre foam pail
5.0HP Honda pump
30 metres of hose on the reel
02 Rakehoes, 02 Pulaskis, 01 Stihl 036 c/saw with 20″ bar
4WD recovery kit plus other items

Thanks WOL

UPDATE on Feb. 13, 2010:

The replacement group of U.S. firefighters should be arriving in Melbourne today. Like the first group, they will be stationed at various locations. WOL told us:

I understand that they are IMT Controllers & Information Officers that will be used to fill gaps in the system identified by the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday wildfires.

A “controller” is what we call an Incident Commander in the United States.