The U.S. firefighters who volunteered to help Australia battle its unprecedented bushfires have just returned home after about a month abroad.
We could not be more proud of our #ANF firefighters returning home this morning to LAX from the Australia wildfires truly an honor to provide Australia support. we are proud of their efforts pic.twitter.com/c4WhN1OEb2
— Robert Garcia (@firechiefanf) February 5, 2020
AP reports that 20 firefighters landed in California at the Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday to reunite with family and friends. The firefighters are normally stationed at Angeles National Forest.
The volunteer group collaborated with the Victoria Rural Fire Service in southeastern Australia to combat the blazes. The returning group worked across several departments in Australia, and consisted of 18 men and two women.
Three volunteers from the U.S. with military backgrounds, Captain Ian McBeth, First Officer Paul C. Hudson and flight engineer Rick DeMorgan Jr. were killed in a plane crash while distributing a flame retardant.
More than 100 U.S. firefighters were deployed in an effort to help Australia contain the rampant fires.
The earliest fleet was dispatched to Australia in late December 2019.
The cataclysmic wildfires decimated at least 12 million acres of land and killed one million animals native to the area.
An interactive map run my Australia’s My Fire Watch shows a cluster of fires still burning in southeast Australia, just on the rural outskirts of Victoria.
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