In July 2025, in a windowless room off Ellice Avenue near Winnipeg’s airport, duty officer Stephen Tulle was tracking a charter flight out of Chile. Sixty firefighters were aboard, bound for Edmonton to help Alberta. The plane would stop in Mexico to collect 40 more, who were due to land in Saskatoon. Red lights on the wall showed the time in several zones. Screens ran weather feeds and a running count of the day’s fires.
That room belongs to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, known as CIFFC. The Winnipeg Free Press described it that month as the place where wildfire help from Canada and abroad gets sorted and sent out.
Born of a bad run of seasons
CIFFC is a federal not-for-profit corporation set up in 1982. The Free Press reported that it grew out of the fire seasons of 1979 to 1981, when agencies ran short of resources and the country saw it needed one office to coordinate them. The BC Wildfire Service describes the centre as owned and operated by the federal, provincial and territorial agencies that manage wildland fire.
It does not fight fires. It moves people and equipment to where provinces cannot cover the gap themselves.
How a request travels
A province that is close to running dry calls the centre. The centre then looks for any jurisdiction with spare crews or aircraft. Inside Canada, the Mutual Aid Resources Sharing Agreement is the formal route for sharing equipment, personnel and aircraft. Ryan Chapman of the BC Wildfire Service put it simply: “we call the CIFFC duty officer and put in a request.” He recalled one Saturday afternoon in 2019, when the centre rang to ask British Columbia for 200 crew staff to help fight fires around High Level, Alberta.
During the season the centre also hosts weekly calls with every province, so each agency knows who has people to spare. In 2021, British Columbia brought in around 917 people and sent out about 248, according to Tanisha Suzuki of the BC Wildfire Service.
Mike McCulley, the centre’s associate director of operations, told the Free Press that the public often asks why Canada does not simply buy more water bombers. “None of that matters if it’s too unsafe to fly over it,” he said. Crews also have to match the place they are sent: the right footwear for Alberta, the same tree-felling standards as British Columbia, translators for crews who do not speak English.
Help from abroad
Once Canadian resources run out, the centre turns to partners overseas, and those crews need seven to 10 days to arrive. Seasons opposite to Canada’s help here. Southern hemisphere countries can lend people in the northern summer, and Canada returns the favour in its off-season. By late July 2025, Tulle had coordinated 1,250 international firefighters and more than 700 domestic ones.
The BC Wildfire Service lists agreements with the United States and arrangements with Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa. The American side is run through the National Interagency Coordination Center. The National Interagency Fire Center says that link has existed since 1982. It was used heavily in 2023, when Canada logged 6,623 wildfires burning over 45 million acres. The U.S. sent 2,774 resources to Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec between May and early October, and it was one of 12 countries to send personnel.
Traffic runs both ways. In January 2025, Canadian resources went south to Southern California: two airtankers from Quebec, two crews and two overhead personnel from Alberta, and one crew and one overhead person from British Columbia.
Sources
- In the eye of the firestorm – Winnipeg Free Press
- Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) – BC Wildfire Service
- International Support – National Interagency Fire Center
