Canada: report calls for better co-ordination of wildfire response

Canada needs to create an office to co-ordinate responses to wildfire emergencies and fund a new national fleet of modern firefighting aircraft, says a new Senate report released Wednesday.

Those recommendations were among 15 in a report from the Senate committee on agriculture and forestry.At a news conference in Ottawa, senators on the committee said one of the key requests they heard while assembling the report was for a single national point of contact to co-ordinate wildfire response.

“We heard that Canada is the only country in the G7 that does not have a seat at the federal table, more or less, to manage and talk about and co-ordinate fire response,” Sen. Mary Robinson, the committee chair, told The Canadian Press.

“I think the efforts to date are appreciated but the crisis is growing and escalating, and we need government to do more for sure.”