It's not so much the number of fires, but their intensity, he says. "We have to be careful and pick the right fires to attack so we can do it safely and not put our crews in jeopardy," he said. With much of western Canada and northwestern Ontario in a similar situation, getting additional resources has been challenging, as there is only so much equipment and so many firefighters to go around. Help on the way The arrival of Canadian Armed Forces personnel on Friday should help. Schafer says they will be tasked with extinguishing hot spots in fires that are close to being extinguished to free up other firefighters to battle more difficult blazes.