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In 1876 Manitoba was the first Province to establish a Provincial fire office with a Fire Commissioner. On July 15th, 1930 Manitoba became the first western Province to gain full power, control and responsibility with regard for forest fires, and fighting forest fires.  
In 1919, brave pilots of the Royal Canadian Air Force climbed into old war planes, (first world war) to perform fire patrol duty. This was an arrangement between the Dominion Forest Service and the RCAF.  
In 1928, there were 24 airplanes on patrol over the prairies. These planes were used primarily for detecting forest fires rather than suppressing them. In the forest, landing areas were unavailable. Even if a pilot was able to land in a suitable clearing the small planes were limited in their capacity to carry equipment and men.  
As one can imagine, the view was terrific, but the job had many disadvantages. Like when a pilot went down in any of the isolated, forested areas, he was difficult to find, even by the competent search-and-rescue teams of the day. By plane, a Chief Ranger could quickly survey a fire site. The quicker the fire site was assessed, and a fire fighting strategy implemented the more likely that small fires could be extinguished before they got out of control. With the Natural Resources Act, the RCAF was withdrawn from these patrols, the Federal Government being no longer responsible for Provincial forests, only for National Parks. This forced the Manitoba Government to decide whether to continue Arial Patrols. If they were to continue Patrols they had to assign new departments, or contract private aerial patrollers.  
 
Source: Help, by Faye Holt.  
 
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/aboutus/organization/4