By Brent Bosker

Saskatchewan lends a hand to battle fires in Manitoba and Ontario

Jul 20, 2011 | 11:55 AM

Saskatchewan has answered the call for fire personnel in Manitoba and Northern Ontario.

Twenty front line firefighters and three air tanker planes left Tuesday for Ontario where about 115 fires are forcing evacuations. Today a request for another air tanker unit was made by Manitoba where conditions along the eastern border are just as volatile.

Saskatchewan can afford to lend a hand at this point, said Brent Krayetski, provincial wild land fire co-ordinator with the ministry of environment.

“We finally received some precipitation in the north that has put a cap on some of the activity we had up there. Yup, the whole province is looking really good right now,” Krayetski said.

Ontario is in a fairly serious state, he said.

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“Ontario is picking up probably 25 new starts daily. They’re anticipating by the end of the week having possibly 6,000 people evacuated from communities out there,” he said, after a conference call with Ontario officials today.

The personnel are expected to be there for about two weeks and its possible additional resources will be requested, Krayetski said.

There is some rain in the forecast, but not enough to cool the threat.

Firefighting resources are shared between the provinces and territories through Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) “Anytime an agency is short of resources or needs help … they will make requests through that agency,” Krayetski said.

bbosker@panow.com