Firefighters from Australia and New Zealand are helping battle wildfires across the Northwest as firefighting resources across the United States are stretched thin. The international crews are now working on fires burning in Oregon and Washington.
“We are here supporting the U.S. in time of crisis and when you’ve got significant fires, and you’re stretched thin on resources, so we’re only happy to help and step up,” said Sam Quigley, the International Liaison Officer representing the team of 74 Australians and New Zealanders.
Quigley said the countries have worked together for years during major wildfire events.
“Our fire training is very similar to the United States, and we’ve had a long arrangement of many years of transferring resources during times of crisis,” Quigley said.
As dozens of large wildfires continue burning across the Northwest, leadership positions and incident management teams remain in high demand. The international firefighters are helping fill those gaps.
“We made sure that we picked the right people to come to this deployment,” Quigley said. “We wanted to bring our best, so you’ve got many of the best right on the fire grounds now.”
The 74 firefighters were divided and deployed to more than a dozen incidents across the region.
“We have deep skills in forest firefighting,” Quigley said. “Crews are there; this will be their first day, and they will hit the ground running because our systems are so similar.”
Longstanding international mutual aid agreements allow countries to support one another during major disasters like this.
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