Gisborne firefighter off to Canada

Gisborne firefighter Mike Pyatt, a crew leader and long-time member of the Eastland Fire Brigade, leaves for Edmonton in Alberta, Canada today to help fight wildfires like this. Smoke rises here from the Stoddart Creek wildfire near Fort St. John, British Columbia in Canada on May 13. Picture supplied

Fire and Emergency New Zealand will today deploy 25 firefighters from across New Zealand to Alberta to help fight wildfires in Western Canada, and one of them is from Gisborne.

The contingent is made up of four five-person firefighting crews — an agency representative, taskforce leader, two air specialists and an incident commander.

Crew leader from the Eastland Fire Brigade Mike Pyatt is the member of the contingent from this area.

He joins the group as a firefighter and as a member of one of the five- person fire crews going over there.

Mr Pyatt has been a member of the Eastland Fire Brigade for many years.

The departing firefighting crew will be New Zealand’s first deployment to assist the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) for Canada’s wildfire season this year.

The other firefighters have been drawn from Northland, Waitemata, Counties-Manukau, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, Manawatu-Whanganui, Wellington, Mid-South Canterbury and Otago.