A contingent of 74 personnel from across Australia and New Zealand are being deployed to the United States to support ongoing wildfire operations. They are expected to be assigned to fires in the north-western states.

The deployment includes incident management specialists, field supervisors, heavy plant and aviation specialists. They will be deployed for five weeks and will play a vital role in supporting firefighting operations, drawing on their specialised skills and experience managing large bush fires in Australia.

The troops will follow the earlier deployment of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service’s large air tanker, the Marie Bahir, which has already dropped more than 500,000 litres of retardant on fires, most recently supporting operations on the Summit Fire near Piñon Hills, California.

With elevated fire conditions continuing across the US, a formal request for assistance was sent to Australia and New Zealand: a process refined and repeated over many recent seasons. The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council/National Resource Sharing Centre coordinates the deployment on behalf of the individual fire and land agencies. The main request is for Incident Management Personnel, Task Force Leaders and Air Base Managers to assist with the ongoing firefighting operations. They are sourced from several states – including New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.

Nationally across the US, firefighters are working on 70 large fires across the country, including five new large incidents since yesterday. The National Interagency Fire Center reports 21,171 firefighters and support personnel engaged in nationwide fire activity, including 478 crews, 1,161 engines, and 128 helicopters.

So far this year, 41,377 fires have burned more than 3.9 million acres across the United States. Red flag warnings are in place in several places, especially southern and central Oregon, and extreme heat warnings are in effect throughout the southern United States. The Northwest continues to pose special concern, with more heavy thunderstorm activity predicted today.