Dustan Mueller had come to expect the unexpected. The US Forest Service deputy fire chief had been deployed thousands of miles from home to battle an out-of-control blaze in the wooded bogs and swampland of Alberta, Canada. “It is nothing like what we have in California,” said Mueller, now back in the US after leading an American team of federal wildland firefighters to tag in on one of the 2,765 fires that have erupted in Canada this year. “The trees are like little matchsticks – and just as flammable.”  …But key differences in approach have prompted new questions about best practices in the face of a global challenge. Along with new types of terrain, US firefighters in Canada have encountered different techniques in the early stages of a burn, a new set of safety protocols, and contrasting requirements for protective equipment.