300 South African Firefighters have been flown to Alberta, Canada to help firefighting efforts currently under way in the Northern Alberta oil sands region.
Canada’s flag carrier, Air Canada, departed OR Tambo International Airport yesterday with the 300 SA firefighters on board, the largest number of wildland firefighters ever brought into Canada.
The firefighters are from South Africa’s Working on Fire programme.
“This is the first time Air Canada has operated into South Africa, which also required rescheduling flights to make one of our largest aircraft available in order to accommodate this request,” Marcel Forget, Air Canada’s senior vice president of commercial Strategy, was cited by The Stat Trade Times as saying.
