BAKER CITY — Firefighters from Australia and New Zealand plan to arrive in August to help Oregon and Washington with fire suppression efforts. 

The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center requested the assistance. Between the two countries, 71 personnel will be leaving Aug. 7-9 for the states.

These firefighters will not be battling the fires directly but taking more of a supportive role for the 13,000 firefighters already are — 9,600 in Oregon. 

“We needed division leaders, task force leaders, heavy equipment bosses and line safety officers,” said Carol Connolly, public information specialist for the NWCC. 

They will first touch down at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise to be briefed before deploying to Oregon and Washington.

It is unclear which wildfires they will be deployed to or how long they’ll be staying. 

Connolly said there are 38 uncontained large active fires in Oregon, with 23 fires caused either by human interaction or are still undetermined. 

“We’re making very good progress on the fires,” she said. “Two of our fires were contained (Sunday, July 28), and we have another four that are probably going to reach containment by the end of shift (July 29).” 

Wildfires have burned more than 1 million acres so far in Oregon.

The National Preparedness Level is at five, meaning national resources are heavily committed, and additional measures are taken to support geographic areas, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. 

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the nation has international agreements in place with Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand that allow the countries to secure fire suppression personnel and aircraft from each other during periods of high wildfire activity.

Australia and New Zealand have sent fire suppression personnel to the U.S. six times since 2000.

In 2018, 140 Aussie and Kiwi firefighters were sent to California, Oregon and Washington to assist with the wildfires.