The Yukon Territory and Alaska have requested assistance from the B.C. Wildfire Management Branch to assist with their increased fire activity.

Eight three-person initial attack crews and one agency representative left for the Yukon yesterday, while two rappattack crews and one helicopter operations technician will leave for Alaska today.

These personnel are deployed out-of-province through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, and the Northwest Compact, which allows for mutual resource sharing between B.C. and other jurisdictions. All associated costs will be covered by the jurisdiction requesting the resource.

Quick Facts:

• More than 600 personnel are currently in Alberta, Alaska and the Yukon.
• A rapattack crew consists of three specially trained firefighters who use helicopters and rope rappelling techniques to access remote areas and to attack fires while the fires are still small.
• A helicopter operations technician is a crew supervisor certified to deploy and retrieve rapattack crews from helicopters and direct rotary wing operations.

Learn More:

Much of B.C. is experiencing hazy skies due to extreme wildfire activity in Alberta. Check out Bluesky, Western Canada's wildfire smoke forecaster, for hour-by-hour updates on smoke concentrations: http://www.bcairquality.ca/bluesky/index.html

You can also follow the latest B.C. wildfire news:

• On Twitter at: http://twitter.com/BCGovFireInfo
• On Facebook at: http://facebook.com/BCForestFireInfo

Contacts:

Alyson Couch
Provincial Fire Information Officer
Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations
250 312-3051

Cheekwan Ho
Government Communications and Public Engagement
Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations
250 356-5261