Canada has requested 10 hand crews from the United States to assist with the huge wildfire at Fort McMurray, the Horse River Fire, in Alberta. A spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service, Kaari Carpenter, said the personnel have been asked to arrive on Wednesday, May 25. The National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) is coordinating with several Geographic Areas hoping to find ten 20-person crews, on which all firefighters have passports.
Other resources that have been requested are two Interagency Resource Representatives (IARR) to support efforts in the Fort McMurray area, and one Technical Specialist (THSP) to serve as International Liaison for NICC at the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
We are working on confirming that an incident management team (IMT) comprised of both Canadians and Americans was mobilized to the Fort McMurray Fire about a week ago. The Northeastern Forest Fire Protection compact has built an IMT consisting of both Canadian Province members and American members and successfully mobilized them across Compact lines to Alberta. As far as we know this is the first time in the history of the compacts that an IMT team has crossed INTER-compact lines to manage international fires.
The map of the Fort McMurray Fire (Horse River Fire) below shows that it has been active over the last 24 hours on the north and east sides. It has burned 523,000 hectares (1.3 million acres or 2019 square miles).
Our main article about the Fort McMurray Fire.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Chris and others.
