UPDATE: Wildfire inside P.A. National Park started as controlled burn
UPDATE: Park officials said the fire is currently located in the southwest corner of Prince Albert National Park, along the border of Rabbit Creek. Fire management staff started a prescribed burn in the southwest part of the park May 4, but officials said the fire blew out of control due to un-forecasted high winds in the area.
David Britton, the national park’s superintendent, said the park had a contingency plan in place and called in national-level resources once the fire began to spread out of control.
“We do prescribed fires in the park for ecological and restoration reasons to restore rare fescue grasslands in that area and have done a number of prescribed burns in that area in previous years,” he said. “On May 4, we had the appropriate weather and environmental conditions to carry out a prescribed fire and at that time there were no fire bans in the area.”
Dean MacDonald, incident commander on the fire, said the cooler weather has slowed the progress of the Rabbit Fire. Ground patrols are working to stop the fire and helicopters are in the air, dropping water at the site and on hot spots.