MNR firefighters leave Sudbury Airport to fight Alberta wildfire

SUDBURY — Forty-four staff members with the Ministry of Natural Resources, including a number of forest firefighters, boarded a passenger jet at the Sudbury Airport Friday headed for Edmonton.

The Ministry of Natural Resources is sending 119 staff members – 82 firefighters and an incident management team – to help crews in Alberta fight the growing wildfire that has decimated the city of Fort McMurray.

The jet will pick up the remaining crew members in Kenora, before landing in Edmonton, where firefighters will be briefed on the situation and assigned to their jobs.

“We really won't know until we get to Alberta what fire we're going to do,” said Dave Clark, a veteran forest firefighter with the ministry who will act as strike team leader on the deployment.

Clark has 16 years experience fighting wildfires, and was deployed to Alberta twice last year.

“Morale is high right now,” he said about his team. “It's the start of a brand new fire season, so we've got lots of young eager and new staff.”

Simon Ethier, the Ministry of Natural Resources' outreach advisor for the northeast region, said firefighters will mainly use pumps and fire hoses to fight the growing blaze in northern Alberta.

But he said they will remain highly dependent on the weather to fight the wildfire.

“The fire has gotten to a point where our capacity to control it is very limited,” he said. 

Ethier added it will likely be an emotional deployment for many staff members because of the damage the wildfire has done to the city of Fort McMurray.

“We've had larger fires, but the fact it's within the community in such a fashion, is definitely a unique situation,” he said.

— Sudbury.com