Calling Out The Militia
by David J. Bercuson
Sergeant Roger Carrasqueira of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery helps fight a forest fire in McClure, B.C.
When forest fires consumed thousands of square hectares of Alberta and British Columbia this past summer--and a good chunk of the interior B.C. community of Kelowna on Lake Okanagan--more than 700 regular and reserve force soldiers from Land Forces Western Area were mobilized to fight them. Joining hundreds of civilian firefighters already battling the flames, the soldiers were given a quick course in fighting fires a...