A month has passed since wildfires devastated Fort McMurray, burning down entire neighbourhoods and forcing the city’s population of more than 80,000 to flee. The world’s attention has largely moved on, and most of those who fled won’t be able to return to their homes, if they still have one, for months. Parts of the charred city are covered in toxic ash.

To top it off, the blaze is still as ferocious as ever, covering nearly 580,000 hectares of forest south of Fort McMurray.

That’s where 300 South African firefighters come in. They were flown 15,000 kilometres from home by the Canadians, who needed extra help to battle the monstrous fires. The group is part of Working on Fire, a South African government-funded program that trains unemployed youth to become firefighters. For many of them, the prospect of earning 1,500 Canadian dollars a month held the promise of transforming their lives.

A smaller contingent came last year, and each was paid about that much in daily allowances and expenses, according to Llewellyn Pillay, managing director of Working on Fire. That’s 10 times what the firefighters earn in South Africa.

But this year, in what some might call typical Canadian fashion and others might simply call good ethics, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) insisted that the South Africans be paid more, if not on par with their local counterparts. Pillay said the number would be between $15 and $21 an hour, whereas Canadians typically make between $21 and $26 an hour.

“We had a dialogue and said let’s make sure that these firefighters are being compensated appropriately,” said Kim Connors, CIFFC director, adding that the pay for South Africans would still be lower than normal Canadian rates. “The only thing to come up last year was that we felt that their salaries are so low, they’re a long way from home, here’s an opportunity: You could increase their salaries a little bit while they’re here, but (not so much) that it upsets their economic balance there.”

The South Africans were apparently taken aback — and impressed — with the generosity. Pillay, of Working on Fire, said he was convinced that the raise made sense from Canada’s standards of equity. “It opened our eyes,” he said. “It’s a much more ethical way of doing it. It’s the right way to operate, morally. We had never thought about it. We were just happy to have the chance to go to Canada. Now we realize we can’t assume that South Africa’s rates are at parity.”

The South African firefighters are considered highly professional. Alberta Wildfire spokesman Travis Fairweather told the Globe and Mail that they will be doing “laborious, intensive work” digging up and extinguishing hot spots.

Last year, the South Africans who worked in Canada used their earnings to open businesses at home, build houses and take educational courses. Many were simply grateful for the opportunity to travel.

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