High River's Deputy Fire Chief is fighting wildfires near Fort McMurray

High River's Fire Department has been called upon to help put out the wildfires that are raging in the Fort McMurray area.

Steve Debienne, one of the town's Fire Chiefs, has made his way to Fort McMurray to help slow the spread of the fires.

Cody Zebedee, Chief of Fire and Community Safety for the Town of High River, says Debienne left for Fort McMurray over the weekend.

"He was deployed last Saturday (May 11) to go up and support Fort McMurray as a Structure Protection Specialist on behalf of the province. He has been up there since Saturday, not sure when we expect to see him home but, he's been up there for a while. They haven't asked for any other resources from us at this point but, hopefully, they get some weather change up there."

This isn't the first instance of the High River Fire Department getting a call to go help with extreme fires hitting Alberta, with firefighters and vehicles having been sent out last year as well.

"We are a part of a package if you would, or a resource that we could be called upon to support the province in other areas of the province. Certainly, last year we had crews deployed from May to about August in varying capacities, so again Steve being one of them. We had a couple trucks sent out to support, certainly, we are a resource like many other communities across the province that offer up resources to go and support other communities in Alberta," Zebedee said.

Zebedee is well prepared for his staff and himself being deployed to help with the fires that seem to be frequent in the Fort McMurray area, helping them with a forest fire back in 2016.

"A lot of the stuff we get deployed with is having our main focus on structural protection, so when fires are threatening buildings or communities is being a part of the response to support the structural protection. So that may include doing some backburns, some burning off of vegetation to create some barriers between the buildings and the fire, setting up sprinkler systems on buildings, working to fire smart homes like getting rid of combustibles around the houses and all the way up to actually when the fire impinges on the communities as they fight the fire when it comes into the communities," Zebedee said.

"That is kind of our main thing, I wouldn't say we are out in the middle of the forest putting fires out, but certainly prepping for the fire to the communities and try and protect them."

Zebedee and his staff are more than willing to help out with communities around the province as they were the ones asking for help just over a decade ago.

"2013 was a big event for us and we had a significant amount of support from the province and communities within the province. For us, it's a way to pay it back for all the support we had seen in 2013. All of my staff it's their thing as well, people come here to help their community so we can now provide support for communities in need."