Canada’s forest fire centre is working on a request to send air tankers to Los Angeles as crews in the region continue to battle the deadly and devastating fires that have left at least five dead.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) said in a statement to Global News that it had received a request overnight from the National Interagency Fire Center in the U.S. for two CL-415 skimmer air tankers with flight crews to operate in southern California.
“CIFFC is working closely with Canadian member agencies to process the request,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.
The CIFFC said that it could not provide a timeline for when the air tankers could be delivered, adding it is working to identify potential resources should more requests for help come in.
As of Thursday, no other resources from the CIFFC were in the U.S.
The federal government has also said it is communicating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about the wildfires and is working with U.S. National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) and provinces.
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Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan said in a post on X that resources and equipment would be mobilized as needed.
It’s not just the federal level, however, that is providing assistance in California with Quebec’s own forest fire protection agency SOPFEU saying Wednesday that two water bombers and crews that were already in the region are helping fight the massive wildfires.
According to SOPFEU, the two planes are sent to the U.S. each fall as part of an annual contract, which was extended this year into January because of the emergency.
Alberta also plans to provide help, Premier Danielle Smith announced on X on Thursday.
“We are preparing to deploy incident command team support to California, as well as additional wildfire-fighting resources, including water bombers and night-vision helicopters,” she wrote on X.
Firefighters in the Hollywood Hills were able to knock down a major threat from the Sunset Fire that broke out on Wednesday evening as flames neared the heart of the city. By morning, authorities lifted an evacuation order for the area.
Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott said they were able to keep the fire in check because “we hit it hard and fast and Mother Nature was a little nicer to us today than she was yesterday.”
The fires have been raging for several days and led to thousands of structures burning down, with the Pacific Palisades fire becoming the most destructive in the city in modern history after an estimated 1,000 structures had burned as of Wednesday.
—with files from Global News’ Phil Heidenreich, The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
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