Canada’s forest fire center is working on a request to send air tankers to Los Angeles as crews in the region continue to battle deadly and devastating fires that have killed at least five people.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC) said in a statement to Global News that it received an overnight request from the National Interagency Fire Center in the US for two CL-415 Skimmer air tankers with flight crews in southern California.
“CIFFC is working closely with Canadian member agencies to process the request,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.
CIFFC said it could not provide a timeline for when the air tankers could be delivered, adding that it was working to identify potential resources should more requests for assistance come in.
As of Thursday, CIFFC had no other resources in the US
The federal government also said it was communicating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about the wildfires and working with the US National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) and the provinces.
Get daily national news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan said In a post on X Resources and equipment will be mobilized as required.
It’s not just the federal level, however, Quebec’s own forest fire protection agency SOPFEU in California said Wednesday that two water bombers and crews that were already in the region were helping to fight the massive wildfire.
According to SOPFEU, two planes are sent to the US every fall as part of the annual contract, which was extended to January this year due to the crisis.
Alberta also plans to provide assistance, Premier Daniel Smith announced Thursday on X.
“We are preparing to deploy additional wildland fire-fighting resources to California, including incident command team support, as well as water bombers and night-vision helicopters,” She wrote on X.
Firefighters in the Hollywood Hills were able to knock down a major threat from the Sunset Fire that broke out Wednesday evening as flames neared the heart of the city. By morning, officials lifted the evacuation order for the area.
Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Eric Scott said they were able to contain the fire because “we hit it hard and fast and Mother Nature was a little nicer to us today than yesterday.”
The fire has been raging for days and has destroyed thousands of structures, with the Pacific Palisades fire becoming the city’s most destructive in modern history after burning an estimated 1,000 structures as of Wednesday.
–Global News Phil Heidenreich, with files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
