Among the crews deployed was State Emergency Services regional trainer Brad Jew from Ballarat, who returned from five weeks in British Columbia on Thursday.

He was running logistics for a camp on the edge of the bush in Northern British Columbia, where the firefighters launched their efforts each day. 

“I was managing three camps with around 500 people in them, how they managed them and developed them and utilised their camps was quite impressive,” he said. 

Mr Jew was the only Victorian SES representative sent to Canada, and said it was a great reciprocal program that saw Canadians helping Victorians in bushfire periods. 

He said organisationally, the Canadian emergency services were quite similar to Victoria, but they went about fighting fires in a very different way. 

“It’s not like here, where we have trucks with a lot of water in them, they have pick-up trucks, which they put a lot of light equipment like bladders and pumps and hose in, and they use a lot of the aircraft a lot more than what we do here,” he said.

“I think they had about 17 aircraft for that one fire, where we probably would have had half a dozen.” 

The deployment followed a request from Canadian authorities for international assistance, and 50 Victorian specialists alone went over in early August, as well as fire experts from other states. 

The Victorian group included people from the CFA and MFB, as well as the Department of Environment and Primary Industry and Parks Victoria. 

Working in areas with little or no residential populations meant the Canadian crews could focus on protecting buildings as well, according to Mr Jew, even in fires covering 120,000 hectares. 

“There was no one killed. Some odd shacks and things out there (burnt), but ... they have a structural protection unit over there, highly trained crews that go out and set up big sprinkler systems and protection around houses and structures, which was quite impressive to see, it was a really good set up,” he said. 

As well as the professional aspect of the time there, Mr Jew said his contingent got on like a house on fire with their Canadian counterparts. 

“The guys were really good over there. There were really easy to get along with, we ended up doing the ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ over there, as an IMT. The whole lot of us lined up, and we all took it for the team,” he said. 

On their last night, they also went to the other end of the spectrum. 

“We organised some fireworks and set some fireworks off for them. They’re not illegal over there, so one of the guys got some in for them,” Mr Jew said. 

He was able to make a big splash back home because their mission ended several days early. 

“My oldest boy had a hot food day at primary school (on Thursday), and my wife helps with that every time they run it, so I tee’d it up to go in with her, and snuck in behind her and surprised him. He sat there for a good 10 or 15 seconds gobsmacked,” he said. 

His four-year-old, who was at home when he got back on Thursday morning was also taken aback. 

“(My two sons) had a calendar on the wall and were ticking off the days on it, it was meant to be about the 15th we were due home. The comment from four-year-old when I got home was ‘daddy you’re home, but I haven’t crossed off all the calendar yet’. Once he got over that, he was quite happy to see me.”

alex.hamer@fairfaxmedia.com.au