Twenty-eight Yukon wildland firefighters left the territory on Tuesday to help fight the forest fire that tore through Fort McMurray earlier this month.
The firefighters will be battling a fire that’s now bigger than Prince Edward Island.
On top of the firefighters, the territory sent one supervisor and one mechanic.
The crews will be deployed for 14 days but can be called back to the Yukon within 24 hours, according to Yukon Wildland Fire Management.
Cooler temperatures and recent rainfall lowered fire risks in the territory, with no new fires reported in the past two weeks.
There have only been 10 fires since the start of the fire season, burning 266 hectares. Around the same time last year the territory was battling 70 active fires and over 31,000 hectares had been burned.
A phased re-entry of Fort McMurray is scheduled to start today and end on June 21.
Of the eight wild fires burning in Alberta, Fort McMurray’s is the only one considered “out of control.”
There are 1,754 wildland firefighters deployed to fight the fire, assisted by 72 helicopters and 252 pieces of heavy equipment, according to Alberta’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
There are firefighters in Alberta from every Canadian province and territory except for Nunavut and Manitoba.
On Tuesday the Alberta government said firefighters had cleared 386 kilometres of forest to stop the fire’s spread.