The province of Ontario is pitching in to help fight the devastating fires in the Los Angeles area.
Premier Doug Ford says the province will send two waterbombers, 165 urban firefighters and an incident management team of up to 20 additional staff to California to assist their efforts in battling the devastating wildfires that have caused thousands of people to flee their homes.
Ford called the scenes out of California “devastating,” adding Ontario will “spare no expense to help our closest friends and allies.”
The Canadian agency that co-ordinates cross-border wildfire response with the United States says it’s working to send a pair of airtankers to Southern California.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, headquartered in Winnipeg, said Thursday that it got a request overnight for a pair of CL-415 Skimmer Airtankers to join the fight against the fires.
The request came from the U.S. National Interagency Fire Centre based in Idaho, it said.
Alberta was preparing to send water bombers, night-vision helicopters and incident command team support while water-bombing pilots and crews from Quebec and a British Columbia company were already fighting the wind-whipped flames.
Firefighters say they are making progress in slowing the major fires that have killed five people. Cadaver dogs and search crews are beginning to search the rubble for more victims.
Roughly 180,000 people are under evacuation orders in the Los Angeles area.
While some famed spots like the Getty Villa Museum, the Hollywood Bowl, the Hollywood sign, and TCL Chinese Theatre have remained at least largely unharmed, the fires have taken a toll on some familiar sites. The high school where Brian De Palma brought Stephen King’s “Carrie” to life, Will Rogers’ ranch house and a motel owned by William Randolph Hearst are among some of the famous structures that were damaged or destroyed by the fires.
Files from The Associated Press were used in this report
