{"id":31652,"date":"2025-07-29T10:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/31652\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T10:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:58:12","slug":"canadian-armed-forces-hit-the-ground-running-in-saskatchewan-to-fight-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/31652\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Armed Forces hit the ground running in Saskatchewan to fight wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 300 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members, who arrived in Saskatchewan this weekend,\u00a0are\u00a0helping the province fight devastating wildfires in the north.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The troops were called in to provide relief so firefighters\u00a0can focus on high priority firefighting, which is classified as type 1 and 2,\u00a0Lt.-Col. Jason Hudson said, speaking from the\u00a0armoury in Prince Albert, about 360 kilometres northwest of Regina.<\/p>\n

The troops are handling type 3 firefighting duties \u2013 which includes work such as\u00a0mop-ups, digging ditches, and clearing debris in areas where wildfires have been contained or are under control. The 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry from Edmonton is leading the mission.<\/p>\n

\"Lt.-Col. Jason Hudson is co-ordinating the mission involving Canadian Armed Forces deployed in Saskatchewan to help the province fight wildfires. (Submitted by Robert Schwartz)<\/p>\n

“We’re taking pressure off of a public safety agency so that they can reorient and reprioritize,” Hudson said. “We are assisting in the overall effort in protecting those local communities that are being threatened by the fires.”<\/p>\n

He said about 300 troops have been deployed to four main zones, including the Weyakwin area, the Green Lake area, and La Loche. The central command post is in Prince Albert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hudson said the request for federal help came on July 23, and within hours, a team arrived in Saskatchewan to co-ordinate with the provincial government and Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) to lay the groundwork for the larger deployment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It was actually probably one of the quickest domestic reactions I’ve ever seen, given the size of the area of operation.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having the army in Saskatchewan, allows other Type 1 and Type 2 firefighters to focus on more dangerous fire zones,\u00a0Hudson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Defence and safety of Canadians is our\u00a0priority as CAF members,” he said. “Troops are super eager, super energized to help … folks in need.<\/p>\n

“We’re here until we’re not needed anymore.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"firefighters\"Members of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia\u2019s Canadian Light Infantry help with firefighting duties in Saskatchewan. (Submitted by Master Cpl. Cass Moon, Canadian Forces Imagery Technician)State of wildfires in Saskatchewan<\/p>\n

There are 60 active wildfires in the province.\u00a0Some of the biggest blazes\u00a0cover more than\u00a01.5\u00a0million hectares of land and have\u00a0forced\u00a0thousands of people from a dozen communities to evacuate.<\/p>\n

Twelve\u00a0communities were under evacuation orders as of 1:30 p.m. CST.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There have been 404 wildfires in Saskatchewan to date this year. That compares to\u00a0the five-year average of 328 for the same time period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 300 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members, who arrived in Saskatchewan this weekend,\u00a0are\u00a0helping the province fight devastating wildfires…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-31652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}