A group of 74 Canadian Arduous Firefighters and Incident Management Teams from Alberta Wildfire and British Columbia Wildfire Service have just arrived in Victoria, Australia, to help fight ongoing bushfires across the state.
These crews are a part of 1300 interstate and international firefighters and IMT personnel brought in to support local crews in a week that has seen record breaking heat across southern Australia.
Victorian Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch said there were multiple out-of-control bushfires burning across Victoria, including the Carlisle River fire in the Otways and the Walwa and Dargo fires in the state’s north-east.
Although the extreme temperatures had slightly eased in southern districts – along with some of the fire activity – the northern parts of the state and into New South Wales were still facing persistent heat. So far this bushfire season, more than 400,000 hectares of land has been affected.
The number of people on deployment has fluctuated over the days, but as of earlier this week 342 interstate support personnel were in Victoria in addition to the internationals:
- 38 from Western Australia
- 31 from Australian Capital Territory
- 127 from New South Wales
- 34 from Northern Territory
- 12 from Queensland
- 100 from South Australia
Wiebusch said the Canadians would stay for a month “bringing a very welcomed boost in capacity to allow us to rotate and rest local teams.”
“The Canadians will help manage and fight remote fires in the Wonnangatta and the Wabba Wilderness in regional Victoria. Amazing commitment to travel significant distance and be away from family and friends for this long period…We can’t thank you enough.”
The Canadian teams will join New Zealand crews already on these fires.
Alberta Wildfire has deployed 37 personnel, including 20 firefighters and 17 wildfire management specialists, to Australia for 30 days to support wildfire response efforts.
Alberta, British Columbia and Australia share a long-standing partnership in fighting wildfires, with 1410 firefighters and support staff deployed to Canada in the last three years.
This map shows the incredible, and in some cases unprecedented, temperatures in southern Australia on Tuesday 27 January.
Parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia all exceeded 48°C /118F, which is rare for these states, even during severe summer heatwaves.
Significant, long standing temperature records were broken on Tuesday, highlighting just how far from ‘typical summer weather’ these temperatures were:
• Walpeup and Hopetoun both reached 48.9ºC yesterday, which was Victoria’s hottest temperature since observations began.
• New South Wales’s second hottest temperature on record was tied when Pooncarie reported 49.7ºC/121.7F.
• South Australia’s fourth hottest temperature on record was reached in Renmark, as it reached 49.6ºC/121.3F.
Thermal data acquired by the Copernicus EU Sentinel‑3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer highlight the severity of the ongoing heatwave across Australia, with extreme land surface temperatures (LST) detected over large regions.
In Willcania and Broken Hill, recorded land surface temperatures ranged between 58 and 60 °C (136-140F), whereas Adelaide appeared cooler, with temperatures of 45–48 °C, likely due to its proximity to the sea.
Credits: Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA
