[[]]Otago Rural Fire Authority staff, with public support, have put together "care parcels'' to show their support for fellow firefighters who continue to face a huge wildfire near Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada.
Early this month, a wildfire that began near the city in Alberta swept through the community, destroying more than 2000 homes and buildings and forcing the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta's history, including the town's 80,000 inhabitants.
Huge rural fires continue to burn in the area.
Otago principal rural fire officer Stephanie Rotarangi and a deputy principal rural fire officer Jamie Cowan spent five weeks in July-August last year working in incident-control teams co-ordinating extensive rural firefighting operations in northern Alberta.
Dr Rotarangi and Mr Cowan said having worked with fellow incident-control team members in Alberta last year made news of the Fort McMurray fire even more meaningful for them, and they decided to send care parcels to show their support for their Canadian colleagues.
The Fort McMurray fire had "certainly not been business as usual'' but had been a fire threat on "a massive scale'', Dr Rotarangi said.
Although the two Otago rural firefighters had not been based near Fort McMurray, they had worked with some of the incident-control team members now co-ordinating the current Canadian firefighting.
"At Otago Rural Fire we know the people fighting this fire and we know how much messages of support mean to them,'' she said.
"We've been getting donations of items that are quintessentially Otago to show our support for the region.''
These items included coffee, rugby balls and chocolate.
She joked that pineapple chunks and peanut slabs were "secret weapons'' in rural firefighting, and they had both been included in the care parcels.
