Kiwi expertise heads for Alberta

Jeromy Cox is going to Canada to help fight fires. Photo / Stephen Parker

A Rotorua rural firefighter is swapping the ice cold of winter for the Canadian summer, but he won't be sunning himself.

Jeromy Cox, who is a sector supervisor for Pumicelands Rural Fire Authority, is one of 16 firefighters from New Zealand's rural fire authorities heading to the province of Alberta to help contain raging fires.

He flies out to Vancouver tomorrow and will transfer to Edmonton, Alberta, to start what is expected to be a five-week deployment.

Mr Cox has been volunteering with Pumicelands since he started work with forest managers Timberlands in 2008. The thinning to waste programme manager has previously been deployed to Australia twice and has fought fires across New Zealand.

"It's a good experience," Mr Cox said. "Timberlands have been very supportive. It's will be a great opportunity to go somewhere I wouldn't normally get to go and I'll learn a lot.

"In Australia we learned how to fight fires with fire breaks to try to save the forest. We're not sure what environment we'll be going to until we get there. It's a bit of the unknown."

He said they would be briefed on arrival then start a 14-day shift. They get a two-day break and then work another 14-day shift.

National Rural Fire officer Kevin O'Connor said the deployment followed a request from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre last week.

The team, drawn from rural fire authorities around the country, would provide frontline support to local firefighters.

"Our people have a range of skills in high demand during lengthy firefighting operations," he said. "These include logistics, planning, finance, ferrying supplies into remote locations and the use of aircraft."

About 800,000 hectares of forest are burning across the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Colombia, as well as in neighbouring Alaska.

New Zealand previously lent support to Canadian authorities in August 2009 during a serious outbreak of wildfires.

New Zealand firefighters have helped their counterparts in Australia nine times and American five times in the past 15 years.