Canadian wildfires have mobilized firefighters from the US, Australia, France and South Africa

Jon Blackstone, a Maine forester who works as a firefighter fighting wildfires in northern Quebec, is glad he paid some attention in high school French classes.

Some command of the language will come in handy for his new temporary job as team safety officer, managing 220 firefighters and 12 helicopters. The team is currently battling five wildfires covering nearly 60,000 hectares or 148,263 acres in Quebec, a French-majority province.

The wildfires ravaging Canada have led to the mobilization of more than 1,500 international firefighters from around the world, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center, with aid from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Costa Rica , Chile, Spain, Portugal, France and Mexico.

Nearly 400 American firefighters have fought fires in Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia.

When the safety of his fellow firefighters is out of order, Mr. Blackstone and his team are stationed at a remote camp, about an hour and a half from Baie-Comeau, a town on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River.

As team safety officer in Quebec, Mr. Blackstone said he had so far only had to respond to minor injuries, including lacerations, twisted ankles and twisted knees.

Mr Blackstone, 56, started fighting fires during his college days when he worked as a backwoods ranger and was often called in to help with bushfires. Later, he and his wife had twin sons, who are now 23 years old. When the twins grew up, he recalled, the family lived in the woods at a ranger station.

“We had a fire truck parked in the yard,” he said. “Because that’s what we did.”

The Americans on his team also include firefighters from New York State and New Hampshire. To communicate with the Québécois firefighters who mainly speak French, he said Americans should stop using so much slang.

“A lot of times when we have a fire that’s growing fast, we call it a ‘eater’,” Mr Blackstone said. “We use so much jargon, of course, and it’s made us aware that we just need to slow it down and use the full words on both sides.”

Mr. Blackstone said his high school French lessons came in handy, along with frequent previous visits to Quebec City with his wife, Dawn, over Christmas, which had given him a sense of the culture. Nevertheless, he said he mostly relies on translators to avoid confusion.