Regional fire fighters return from Saskatchewan fires

Ontario firefighters are arriving back home after spending 10 days lending a hand to Saskatchewan fire crews.

About 20 crews from the West Fire Region started returning to the Northwest Thursday at the Thunder Bay International Airport.

The crews spent most of their time near South End, a northern reserve near the Manitoba border doing values protection – setting up sprinklers around valued areas near communities so if fires come through, they won’t burn.

Crew member Erika Perrier said it’s a great experience working in other provinces and learning new techniques.

“In Saskatchewan most of what they do is values protection,” she said. “We don’t do it as often here in Ontario. We had a good chance to work with Saskatchewan crews and get tips from them and they took tips from us. It’s a good chance to broaden your knowledge.”

Crew leader Andrew Cameron said Ontario sends firefighters to other provinces every year and they always come back with a lot of new ideas.

“There is always some place in Canada burning,” he said. “There is always at one point somewhere overextended with personnel… It’s always a welcomed thing to go out of province just for meeting people, seeing different types of equipment.”

And it works both ways; crews from other provinces often travel to Ontario as well. Cameron said overall it strengthens firefighting throughout the country.

Perrier said she’s travelled out of province the past three years and whether or not they travel depends on how slow the forest fire season is in Ontario.

The experience also brings each four-person crew closer together, she added.

“You’re out there with those four people for an extended amount of time,” she said. “You can stay for 14 days on the fire line and two days of travel time when you go out of province.

You really need to be able to work together and communicate well for everything to go smoothly because you’re kind of all you have when you’re out there.”

Cameron said it’s unknown if they’ll be sent anywhere else this year, but they could possibly head to British Columbia in the near future.