Canada Declined U.S. Assistance in Fighting Fire

The scenes of the horrific fire at Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada led me to ask the question “Why did the United States not offer any assistance to help fight that fire?”       I said to many people, “How could our country not even ask our ally and good neighbor to the north if we could help them?”  Well, the answer is we did…along with Russia, Mexico, Australia, Taiwan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I stand corrected.

All of those country’s offers were received with an answer of “thanks, we appreciate the offers, but it isn’t necessary” according to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau told a news conference last week that water bombers and firefighters from other provinces, including Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec and New Brunswick, are getting a handle on the situation.

Meanwhile, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale last week confirmed Trudeau’s comment saying Canadian authorities did have a handle on the crisis and what was truly needed was a break in the weather meaning the need for rain in the area. The timetable for the long-term reconstruction of the community, where over 1,600 homes were destroyed and municipal infrastructure weakened, is undetermined.

Can you imagine evacuating 88 thousand people with only one flame riddled highway available to pass through? Could you imagine Quincy having to deal with this? That’s like asking twice the population of Quincy to leave their homes and get on Broadway and drive east onto smoke and fire riddled Highway 104 to evacuate the city. I can only imagine the total chaos that would happen here. Imagine how it was in Fort McMurray!

To their credit, there was incredibly no loss of life. So credit goes to the emergency management personnel who handled that horrific situation.