Planes from Saskatchewan are being used to help fight fires in Manitoba.

For the past few days CV 580 airtankers have flown over a section of bush, north of Thompson, to release fire-retardant there.

Scott Wasylenchuk of Saskatchewan Environment says it’s a fairly straight-forward plan of attack:

“We dispatch them out of here. They fly over, they get their instructions from the incident commander on that end.  They drop their load and typically they return back to Saskatchewan.”

He explains recent rains in our province have dampened fire conditions here and freed up the aircraft for other uses.

At this point Manitoba has not asked for any ground crews.