Guadalajara, Jalisco, August 10, 2026 – Five members of the Jalisco State Civil Protection and Firefighters Unit have joined Mexico’s fourth wildfire deployment to Canada this year, raising the state’s contribution across the international missions to 24 firefighters and technical specialists.
The five officers work in the agency’s Fire Management and Operations directorates. Jalisco Civil Protection said they traveled to Abbotsford, British Columbia, with a national team assembled by the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR).
The latest deployment includes 102 people, with 100 wildland firefighters and two technical specialists drawn from 22 Mexican states. A CONAFOR deployment update said the contingent joins more than 300 Mexican personnel already working in Canada.
Jalisco identified Abbotsford as the group’s destination. Mexico’s broader operations update places active Mexican teams at several fire zones beyond that arrival point.
Crews in Ontario are working at the Rinker Lake and Dryden fire complexes and near Atikokan. In British Columbia, a Mexican incident-management team and two brigades have been assigned to the Big Bar complex.
Their work includes direct attacks on active fire lines, locating and extinguishing hot spots, clearing dangerous trees, installing water-supply equipment and operating portable Mark 3 high-pressure pumps. Teams also conduct reconnaissance in areas where heat remains beneath burned vegetation.
The reinforcements reached Canada as conditions in British Columbia deteriorated sharply. The province declared a state of emergency on August 8 after the Bald Range wildfire spread through the Okanagan region and forced more than 20,000 people to evacuate.
By August 10, the fire had grown to more than 13,600 hectares and caused the first reported death linked to the emergency. Canada had recorded more than 4,600 wildfires and nearly four million hectares burned this year, Reuters reported.
The Jalisco officers come from a state response system that entered the 2026 dry season with 196 brigades and nearly 2,000 personnel assigned across Jalisco. That structure was tested by fires and smoke emergencies along the coast, including Cabo Corrientes and Tomatlán, as Vallarta Daily reported in March.
Mexico and Canada renewed their operational wildfire resource-sharing plan in February. The arrangement is based on a 2018 memorandum between CONAFOR and the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre and provides the framework used to mobilize trained crews between the two countries during major emergencies. CONAFOR described the updated 2026 agreement as covering personnel exchanges, technical coordination and continued joint training.
