KZN firefighters 'proud' to represent SA in battle against Canadian wildfires
KZN firefighters deployed to battle raging wildfires in Canada say they
were proud to represent their country.
Khulani Zulu, who is a regional manager at Working on Fire, arrived home on Monday after a fourth team consisting of 215 officers successfully completed its mission.
“It feels good to be back at home, obviously when you are going for such deployment you will miss your family, but one thing kept carrying us, we motivated each other and encouraged each other to keep focusing on the objective of why we were deployed to Canada, to help with the fires and come back home in one piece."
Working on Fire ordered the deployment of four teams in the past three months.
Some 860 firefighters and management personnel confronted what's been reported as one of the most severe wildfire seasons in Canada's history.
READ: Over 800 SA firefighters sent to tackle Canada wildfires
Zulu says the lessons they learned were invaluable.
"Safety is the first priority in Canada and they made sure the Canadians, that when everyone is going to the fireline, they come back safely. I'm taking this back home with me because I believe this will help us to ensure that we minimise the incidents that may occur during firefighting."
The North American country recorded 6,330 fires this year which destroyed over 17 million hectares of land.
The deployment of South African wildland firefighters to Canada was a response to a request for assistance from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre based on a memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries in 2019.
