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Canada, United States expand agreement to help each other fight wildfires

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 22 Jun, 2023 02:09 PM

Canada and the United States are expanding an agreement to share people and equipment to fight wildfires.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and U.S. Ambassador David Cohen are signing the memorandum of understanding in Ottawa today.

This year's wildfire season is amongst the worst we've ever seen. Today, @USAmbCanada and I signed an arrangement that strengthens our countries’ cooperation to combat wildland fires and protect our communities. pic.twitter.com/DuKe9QIWHO
— Jonathan Wilkinson 🇨🇦 (@JonathanWNV) June 22, 2023

The two countries have repeatedly relied on each other to help when the wildfire situation grows beyond what they can handle on their own.

The new agreement replaces a number of separate deals between the two countries in a bid to make the sharing of firefighters, incident managers and equipment more efficient.

It comes as Canada continues to battle its worst wildfire season in history, with more than 61,000 square kilometres of land burned so far this year, which is about the same size as Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island combined.

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says nearly 2,000 international firefighting personnel are in Canada right now, including several hundred from the U.S.

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