Northeastern fire rangers assisting in Montana

Firefighters in Montana are getting a hand from northeastern Ontario, as 48 Ministry of Natural Resources fire rangers will undergo a day of training before spending up to two weeks fighting fires.

Tens of thousands of hectares of Montana are currently burning, and the terrain is steep and mountainous.

The coordinator for fire personnel for the ministry says thanks to some training in British Columbia, the fire rangers will be working in relatively familiar surroundings.

"Where our crews are going its nothing that they havent seen before," John MacDonald said.

"Im very confident that theyll do well there and make us proud."

MacDonald said the United States are calling in resources from across Canada to help with out of control fires in several states.

The MNR has so far sent a total of 100 fire rangers from across the province, but added there are enough staff to manage current forest fire activity in the northeast while the group is away.

MacDonald said the forest fire situation in the northeast has been extremely quiet this year as so far, there have been 529 fires whereas last year, there were 1,404.

"Slower seasons, they do lots for training and that, but that doesnt translate into a lot of overtime" he explained.

"To get their overtime, there has to be fires and you learn a lot on fires, also."

The ten year average for fires in northeastern Ontario is 955 fires per season.