WATCH: Singing South African firefighters touch down in Canada

30 May 2016 - 15:26 By Times LIVE
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300 South African firefighters have arrived in Canada in high spirits.

The firefighters, including about 60 women, who are from the Department of Environmental Affairs' Working on Fire programme, flew out from Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport.

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They sang and danced as they were welcomed at the Edmonton International Airport.

The South African firefighters have gong to help Canada battle a huge wildfire which has been raging in Fort McMurray, Alberta for a month.

In that time it has spread  to more than 566,200 hectares and displaced more than 80,000 people.

Currently there are more than 2,000 firefighters on the frontline, battling the blaze as people begin to return to the oil producing region.


An image taken by the Suomi NPP satellite's VIIRS instrument around 20:35 UTC on May 24, 2016. Credit: NOAA/NASA Caption information:Canadian Wildland Fire Information System

As the fire has retreated somewhat from populated areas, Suncor on Sunday announced that it bringing some of its facilities back online.

"Suncor has moved over 4,000 employees and contractors back into the region ... and anticipates that over the coming week it will move approximately 3,500 additional people to support its return to operations," AFP reported Suncor as saying.

The work stoppage at oil facilities in the region reduced Canada's total output by an estimated 1.2 million barrels per day.

Linton Rensburg, Working on Fire spokesman, said South Africa heeded Canada's call for help because of the 'long-standing relationship' between the two countries.

This mission is the biggest non-military deployment of South Africans to date to help a foreign country.

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