Canadian military, firefighters ready to join Los Angeles wildfire battle

Canada's emergency preparedness minister says Canadian military personnel, their equipment and another 250 firefighters stand "ready to support our American neighbours" as wildfires devastate parts of Southern California.

Canada's emergency preparedness minister says Canadian military personnel, their equipment and another 250 firefighters stand "ready to support our American neighbours" as wildfires devastate parts of Southern California.

Harjit Sajjan says in a social media post that "Team Canada, with Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, is ready to deploy 250 firefighters, aircraft equipment and other resources as early as" Thursday night.

Meanwhile, British Columbia Forests Minister Ravi Parmar said in a post on X that "California came to B.C. directly" on Thursday to request "senior-level expertise" to work with U.S. officials "on the front line."

"California has supported us in our time of need, and we're now able to reciprocate that support," Parmar said.

"This is of course a rapidly evolving situation, but we will deploy the resources that our partners need."

The pledges come as the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre said Thursday that the U.S. National Interagency Fire Centre asked for two of its CL-415 Skimmer Airtankers to join the fight against the fires.

"The request is being actioned but the delivery timeline is currently unavailable," the agency said in an email to The Canadian Press. "We are also proactively working to identify potential resource availability, should more requests come in.