Eastern Idaho firefighters leaving for Canada

Bright and early Saturday morning, the Targhee regular fire crew will head to Grand Junction Colorado. From there, they’ll make the journey to Edmonton.

Eastern Idaho firefighters geared up for a once in-a-lifetime experience.

“Not many of us get an opportunity in our careers to go to another country,” said Jesse Bender.

Traveling out of the country requires more preparation.

“Usually you get the call, you get the order and you get on the road as soon as you can,” said Bender.

“Except for one small thing — we had to make sure all the firefighters had passports,” Dana Harris said.

They also had to figure out logistics for the trip.

“We had to charter a bus for them to get to the jet and we usually don’t have to do that,” said Harris.

For their scheduled 14-day trip, the crew of 20 and gear can only weigh 5,300 pounds.

A lot of the fuel and terrain is similar to what these firefighters are used to working.

As of right now, they aren’t sure what fire they will be assigned to fight.

You can follow the BLM Idaho fire account on Twitter.

Updates on what the crew is doing can be found by searching #targheeregs.