Sign up for the paNOW newsletter

Year in review: Challenging wildfire season started early

Dec 21, 2018 | 7:00 AM

As 2018 draws to a close, paNOW is taking a look back on the most important and impactful stories of the year, as selected by our reporters and editorial staff.

The spring brought an early start to wildfire season that saw flames encroach a number of communities in the region.

Heat, coupled with tinder dry conditions, a lack of rain, and at times high winds created a number of serious issues starting in mid-May and lasting well into the summer.

A blaze that broke out near Holbein on the evening of Saturday, May 12 became the first big concern of the wildfire season.

Local resident Brenda Rombough figured things sparked around 5 p.m.

“I waited for a while and it was getting worse and worse so I figured I better come up and check on my cousin [in Holbein] and see how she was doing,” she told paNOW. “We are just sitting here watching and hoping it is under control.”

The blaze was reported as 450 hectares or 4.5 square kilometres as of 10 a.m. on the Sunday, but it got bigger and quickly. By noon it grewto about 1,024 hectares.

The fire then breached a guard set up on the eastern flank and the hamlet of Crutwell was in the potential line of fire. It ended up evacuated twice, albeit briefly, in the following days as the fire grew further.

Patty Thole lives in the community of about 57 and arrived Monday evening at the Shellbrook Hall set up to take evacuees. She watched the hamlet’s group chat all morning and said the evacuation order seemed to come “out of the blue.”

“There was about four or five RCMP vehicles that raced in with their lights on going door-to-door telling us all we need to leave,” she said. 

People in the hamlet were scared and nervous but she said possessions and belongings could always be replaced.

Flying embers jump river

In the coming days cooler weather helped give crews the upper hand but not before a few edgy moments for communities closer to Prince Albert and area when flying embers crossed the North Saskatchewan River.

Steve Roberts, executive director of Wildfire Management, said firefighters took advantage of the better weather conditions to work on the containment lines while other crews were busy dealing with the constant risk of flying embers which sparked fires on the east side of the river.

“We had a couple of hot spots on the island in the middle of the river and a couple on the other side, but we have ground crews working with local fire departments to contain those,” Roberts said.

Controlled burn becomes wildfire in National Park

Meanwhile a prescribed burn that was started by Prince Albert National Park fire management staff May 4, in the southwest corner along the border of Rabbit Creek, got out of control. Officials said un-forecasted high winds were to blame.

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.”

By May 26 the fire was measured at 35,400 hectares although much-welcomed rain near the Waskesiu townsite and on the southeast side of the blaze helped crews on the ground.

Among several other wildfires that caused alarm in various communities was one that came out of nowhere near Hi Rock at Sandy Bay. This video sums up how close it came to properties and how quickly it grew.

 

Major incident in the North

By June the continued hot and dry weather and widespread lightning strikes created more emergencies.

Hundreds of people from Southend in the North were forced to leave their homes and seek temporary shelter in Prince Albert and Saskatoon due to a wildfire threatening their community.

Priority residents, which included elderly and pregnant women, were transported to Prince Albert and everyone else was sent to the Hank Ruys soccer centre in Saskatoon.

An evacuation order was issued by the Prince Albert Grand Council and the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in response to smoke concerns.

Wilson Dumais left Southend with his pregnant girlfriend.

“She’s in her third trimester now, and I know we didn’t want to wait any longer than we had to,” he told paNOW.

Dumais said the smoke situation wasn’t too bad but there had been difficult times for his girlfriend. 

Over 700 people were ultimately forced to leave Southend during the week with most receiving assistance in Prince Albert.

Uranium mine under threat

Later in June lightning coupled with the continuing dry conditions and produced 19 new wildfires in the province in just one 24-hour period. One of those strikes sparked a significant blaze near Cameco’s McArthur River uranium mine site.

The Ministry of Environment said one of 15,000 lightning strikes caused the 6,000-hectare fire that moved within a few kilometres of the mine site.

Provincial officials said the facility was well-prepared for the potential of a wildfire and crews worked alongside mine personnel to protect important infrastructure.

Combustible summer brings unwanted challenges for crews

The constant threat of dealing with fast-moving fires wasn’t the only challenge facing crews.

The Nisbet wildfire just over the bridge from Prince Albert burst into life in late July and later officials had to make an appeal to the public for their understanding in times of emergencies.

Buckland Fire Chief Garry Schrader said the job of knocking down that fire was made more difficult due to the dozens of drivers who flocked to the area to watch water bombers work on the blaze from above.

Schrader said firefighters coming from the Buckland fire hall also had trouble getting into the area.

“It was so bad on the highway from people watching that I couldn’t get across the highway with my truck,” Schrader told paNOW. “It took me about five minutes just to cross the highway, because there were people going about five kilometres an hour and wouldn’t let me through.”

 

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow