By Angela Hill

More firefighters head east

Aug 5, 2011 | 6:40 AM

Additional Saskatchewan firefighters are en route to Ontario, to help bring more than 100 forest fires under control.

“Problems facing them now are basically handling the fires that have been in existence for a while that have grown,” said Bob Spracklin, aviation co-ordinator at the provincial wildfire centre in Prince Albert.

“They haven’t as much of a problem in the last two or three days with new starts, so it’s manpower they’ve been looking for.”

On Wednesday afternoon, there were 42 Type 1 firefighters sent. Spracklin said that they can do initial attacks and be frontline firefighters.

Also en route to Ontario are eight incident management people.

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“They’ll be deployed to a variety of locations in north-western Ontario,” Spracklin said.

While there was some equipment sent originally, that is all back and the main focus is assisting with the ongoing suppression efforts, he said.

These firefighters will be out of province for about two weeks, which is a typical rotation, Spracklin said.

A number of the original 21 firefighters that were sent to Ontario arrived back to Saskatoon on Thursday afternoon.

The lack of fires across Saskatchewan has allowed for the province to share their firefighters, Spracklin said.

There are only five fires burning in the province, with very few starts, he said.

The fire danger across the northern part of the province is considered moderate.

ahill@panow.com