But yesterday three firefighters from the wider Queenstown area boarded a plane to somewhere with more open spaces and a lot more heat.
Firefighters Sonya Porteous and Sam de Reeper, both of the Glenorchy Volunteer Fire Brigade, and Jamie Cowan, of Queenstown, are all going to Canada to fight fires.
Ms Porteous’ role is helibase manager, Mr de Reeper is a firefighter and Mr Cowan will be an agency representative.
All are volunteer firefighters: Ms Porteous is a farm worker, Mr de Reeper is a monitoring and enforcement officer for the Queenstown Lake District Council, while Mr Cowan works in wildlife management.
Twenty-five New Zealand firefighting personnel have headed to Alberta to help fight wildfires raging across western Canada.
The New Zealand contingent of four five-person crews, an agency representative, task force leader, two air specialists and an incident commander left New Zealand yesterday, joining a 200-strong Australian contingent that will support Canada’s firefighting operations.
The situation in western Canada is significant, with large wildfires burning across the area just north of the US-Canada border.
A drought in Alberta has lingered since the northern hemisphere autumn, and fire activity has started early: there have been more than 500 fires and more than 750,000ha have burned to date in the northern hemisphere spring.
There are about 90 active blazes in Alberta and more than 20,000 have been evacuated from their homes and oil and gas production has been affected because of fire conditions.
"Fighting fires of this magnitude is a hugely demanding task. We’re happy to provide support to our Canadian colleagues," Fire and Emergency New Zealand Deputy National Commander Steph Rotarangi said.
