Canadian Wildfires Have Mobilized Firefighters From the U.S., Australia, France and South Africa

Jon Blackstone, a forest ranger from Maine, who is working as a firefighter battling wildfires in northern Quebec, is happy he paid some attention during French classes in high school.

Having some familiarity with the language is coming in handy for his new temporary job as a team safety officer, managing 220 firefighter staff and 12 helicopters. The team is currently fighting five wildfires covering nearly 60,000 hectares, or 148,263 acres, in Quebec, a Francophone majority province.

The wildfires convulsing Canada have led to the mobilization of more than 1,500 international firefighters from across the world, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, with help arriving from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Costa Rica, Chile, Spain, Portugal, France and Mexico.

Nearly 400 American firefighters have been fighting fires in Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia.

When not managing the safety of his fellow firefighters, Mr. Blackstone and his team are based at a remote camp, about an hour and a half drive to Baie-Comeau, a city located on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River.

As a team safety officer in Quebec, Mr. Blackstone said he had so far only needed to respond to minor injuries including cuts, twisted ankles and twisted knees.

Mr. Blackstone, 56, began fighting fires during his college years when he worked as a backwoods ranger, often getting called in to help with forest fires. Later, he and his wife had twin sons, who are now 23 years old. When the twins were growing up, he recalled, the family lived in the woods in a ranger station.

“We had a fire engine parked in the yard,” he said. “Because that’s what we did.”

The Americans on his team also include firefighters from New York State and New Hampshire. To communicate with the Québécois firefighters who primarily speak French, he said the Americans had to stop using so much slang.

“A lot of times, if we have a fire that’s growing fast, we’ll call it a ‘gobbler,’” Mr. Blackstone said. “We naturally use so much jargon, and it made us aware that we’ve just got to slow it up and use the full words on both sides.”

Mr. Blackstone said his French classes from high school were coming in handy, along with frequent past visits to Quebec City with his wife, Dawn, over Christmas, which had given him a sense of the culture. Nevertheless, he said he mostly relies on translators to avoid any confusion.