As crews continue to battle the massive wildfire in the Fort McMurray area, the exemplary service of 155 Alberta firefighters was recognized at a ceremony in Calgary.
The medals, awarded during the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association’s 69th annual conference, honoured the 2015 achievements of the members. The ceremony took place at a time when the ongoing battle with the northern Alberta wildfire weighed heavy on the minds of everyone in the room.
“There were 300 plus firefighters working together, side-by-side, on that fire front,” said Parkland Country Fire Services chief Brian Cornforth. “Most firefighters say they’ve never seen anything like it and we hope we never will again.”
Alberta has more than 13,000 active firefighters including a large number of volunteers.
“We had 31 fire departments from Alberta alone involved in Fort McMurray and they’d go in for seven or eight days,” said Bill Purdy, the AFCA’s executive director. “About 80 per cent of all of those were volunteers.”
As of Sunday, the wildfire has covered nearly 580,000 hectares of land and has entered the province of Saskatchewan.
Premier Notley is scheduled to address the conference on Tuesday.
With files from CTV's Alesia Fieldberg
