'The trees are like matchsticks' A global approach to wildfires

US crews have been deployed to help Canada tackle record wildfires-prompting questions about best practice

- Gabrielle Canon, Leyland Cecco

Dustan Mueller had come to expect the unexpected. The US Forest Service (USFS) deputy fire chief had been deployed thousands of kilometres from home to battle an out-of-control blaze in the wooded bogs and swampland of Alberta, Canada.

In the dry forests of northern California he was used to, a rainstorm would probably mean an end to the fire. But in this terrain, even a latespring storm could do little to slow the flames: two days after being doused, the conflagration roared back to life.

"It is nothing like what we have in California," said Mueller, now back in the US after leading an American team of federal wildland firefighters to tag in on one of the 2,765 fires that have erupted in Canada this year. "The trees are like little matchsticks - and just as flammable."

Canada is in the midst of a record-shattering fire season that has left more than 5.7 m hectares charred and stretched emergency resources to the limit - with months of the season left.

Across Canada last week, 161 fires were burning, with 78 of them considered to be out of control. And the effects of these large fires aren't just local: thick smoke blanketed swathes of the US in early June while last week, Chicago and Detroit briefly had the most unhealthy air in the world as a new wave of ashen air drifted south.