The BC Wildfire Service is getting a little help from its friends.
Sixteen out-of-province wildfire fighters and one agency representative from Alberta have been called in to help B.C. crews in the Southeast Fire Centre.
It’s the first time B.C. has called on another province for help this year.
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Fire information officer Ryan Turcott said the loan was more a matter of giving crews in the southeast a break than of an uptick in fire activity.
“B.C. has some of our own crews that just need to take some days off, or they’ve been assigned to fire duties elsewhere. So this is a temporary assignment so that some of our own crews can get a bit of a well-deserved rest,” Turcott said.
“The BC Wildfire Service at this point is not planning on bringing on any additional out of province support.”
The firefighters are on loan through the Canadian Interagency Fire Centre, which coordinates the sharing of firefighting resources across the country.
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Crews from one province are frequently deployed to another jurisdiction when flare-ups in the wildfire situation exceed what local crews are staffed to handle.
“Every fire season the BC Wildfire Service does work with other provincial jurisdictions and there is resource sharing going on depending on where the fire activity is,” Turcott said.
READ MORE: B.C. wildfires map 2018: Current location of wildfires around the province
Earlier this month, B.C. was forced to recall more than 200 firefighters who had been deployed to help with fires in Ontario and Quebec.
Last year, firefighters from every province and territory except for Nunavut, along with crews from the U.S., Mexico, Australia and New Zealand were called in to help B.C. fight its worst-ever wildfire season.