The Oregon Department of Forestry is sending 22 firefighters to Alberta, Canada — including 11 from Southern Oregon — as the province wrestles with over 100 wildfires.

“We’re prepared to send more people as needed,” said said Natalie Weber, public information officer for the state Department of Forestry, Southwest District.

“This time of year is our shoulder season. On both sides of fire season, we will send people anywhere in the country they’re needed, and in this case out of the country.”

The Medford unit is sending a type-3 incident commander and a division supervisor. A firefighter from Grants Pass is a task force leader, Weber said. She said engines would be sent with the firefighters, who were expected to be deployed as early as Tuesday.

Oregon firefighters have been to Canada before as part of the Northwest Compact — a 25-year-old mutual assistance agreement to share firefighters between Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Alaska, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Yukon and Northwest territories, according to an ODF press release announcing the deployment. 

In Alberta, resources are stretched thin in the face of extreme lightning, high winds and dry, warm conditions. More than 29,000 people have been forced to evacuate, according to The Associated Press.

“It’s great that we can help our neighbors, but in the process our firefighters will encounter new challenges that they might not get here,” Weber said. “Every area is different. It may have different topography, different climate, different fuels, different challenges. Our firefighters can gain that experience and bring that knowledge home.”

Firefighters from southwestern Oregon are already among some of the most experienced in the state due to the sheer frequency of wildfires.

“In just southwest Oregon — Jackson and Josephine counties — we respond to about one-third of the ODF’s fires across the state. We’re a really busy district,” Weber said.

The fires in this ODF district also balloon easily on abundant fuels and heat, spreading into larger fires if they aren’t taken down quickly.

“We typically function in type 3 all season,” she said.

The ODF grades wildfires from type 5 — a small fire easily put out with minimal resources — to a type 1, which is a fire of the size, complexity and number of engaged resources as last year’s Rum Creek Fire, which burned more than 21,000 acres.

Last year, ODF sent firefighters to New Mexico, Weber said. And last year during the Double Creek Fire in northeast Oregon, four personnel came to Oregon from British Columbia.

“Fire is a family, no matter if it’s in the U.S or Canada, and we’re here to help. But keep in mind we make sure that our own fire management system is prepared and ready to respond to fires here in Oregon,” said Mike Shaw, ODF’s fire protection division chief, in the release.

The firefighters will be in Alberta for two weeks and won’t know their assignments until they arrive, Weber said.