The 109 firefighters and management from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environments’ Working on Fire programme are set to return to South Africa on Thursday, 16 September 2021, after a successful deployment to Manitoba, Canada, where the South Africans assisted provincial firefighting authorities with wildland firefighting efforts.

These firefighters and management left South Africa on 10 August 2021 and at the time of their arrival in Winnipeg, Canada were experiencing high fire dangers, their available wildland fire management resources within the country were exhausted and they were on their highest level, National Preparedness Level 5.

The firefighting divisions were deployed to various active fires in Manitoba from Friday 13 August 2021, Loon Straits in the Eastern Sector and the Cold Lake complex in the Western Sector where multiple fires were burning.

Source: Government of South Africa