page_title: 2015 Canadian wildfires
section_title: First Responders
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Canadian wildfires / Response Effort / First Responders
caption_attribution_description: English: Sikorsky CH-54A Tarhe, s/n 66-18410, new to US Army in 1967. Later in civilian life a S-64A Skycrane, N6156U, Tanker 790, used for fire fighting missions flown by Heavy Lift Helicopters, Inc. Carrys two tanks, two doors on each tank, with total capacity of 2,600 US gallons. Shown here at the Prineville, Oregon, airport (PRZ/S39).
context_page_description: 2015 Canadian wildfires were a series of wildfires across Canada and Alaska in July 2015 which spread smoke across most of North America. Over two hundred fires were ablaze across British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
  Tens of thousand of people had been evacuated and more than 1,900,000 hectares of forest had burned. Fire-fighters from Mexico, Western Australia, and New Zealand were sent to assist. The Canadian military also fought the fires. Since the smoke was so dense, warnings had been given across central and Western Canada; additionally, parts of the western United States were also issued air advisories because of the amount of smoke. Wildfires have burned one million hectares in Saskatchewan in the past year according to statistics posted on the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The words people have used to describe this natural disaster is "extreme, unprecedented, and historic. A majority of the ecosystem where the fire had been burning consists of boreal forests. Circumstances for catastrophic fires were created as a result of the fuel buildup starting in the 1950s caused fire inhibition. This outcome created a change in the landscape-age mosaic.
context_section_description: The 2015 fire season pushed the system to its limit in terms of engaging resources in a situation where other jurisdictions were also demanding resources. Fire suppression cost $198,561,059 in total, mobilising just short of 2000 personnel in the 2015 fire season. As a result, they contained 92.7% of wildfire in the first burning period, and 95.6% in the second burning period. The 2015 Fire season and wildfire management program review concluded that fire suppression was ‘well-defined and well-executed’. 
  However, more than 13,000 people were forced from their homes due to northern Saskatchewan blazes, according to Red Cross. The Canadian Red Cross, as of the 9ᵗʰ July 2015, had assisted more than 7,800 people in the province’s northern region, with a total of 280 trained Red Cross personnel from across Canada on the ground with many others coordinating from a distance. The Saskatchewan government was forced to bring in a Sikorsky S-64 skycrane from Montana, and the deployment of an immediate response team of 500 members from the Canadian Armed Forces.
caption: Sikorsky S-64 skycrane
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