Canadian Provinces recognise Australian and New Zealand contribution
Canada experienced it’s second worst fire season on recording in 2025. Once again, Australian and New Zealand emergency service personnel were available to support Canadian agencies and their communities.
In 2023 Canada experienced its worst fire season on record. There were 6,518 recorded fires burnt through 14,495,235 hectares.1 In 2025, 6,052 fires (so far) have burnt through 8,310,098 hectares.2
While just over half the area of 2023’s devastation fires, this year’s outcome was twice the national 10-year average and impacted most Canadian Provinces at some point during the season.3 This put significant pressure on Canadian emergency service agency’s ability to support each other.
Following calls for assistance from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, 352 Australian and New Zealand personnel were deployed between 2 June and 11 September 2025. The Australasian teams worked across incident management teams, fire ground leadership roles, arduous crews and deployment management positions, supported British Columbia and Alberta, provinces were Australian and New Zealand personnel are a familiar fixture, as well as Manitoba and Saskatchewan, provinces that had not required international support in the past.
This created many challenges and opportunities for locals and deployed members alike and the feedback from returning firefighting personnel was that the main thing they would take from the deployment, was the relationships they had developed in the field and the appreciation from the communities.
Alberta and Saskatchewan Provinces have both recognised the contribution of Australian and New Zealand personnel deployed this year through the presentation of plaques. AFAC has received these on behalf of all AFAC members involved.
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