Joe McWilliams

Lakeside Leader

Wildfire suppression efforts got an assist from the weather over the past few days. There was little or no growth in any of the ones in the Slave Lake Forest Area, but on the other hand most were still listed as out of control as of the June 15 update. And Peerless, Trout, Red Earth, Loon Lake and Chip Lake residents were all still evacuated.

There were some very smoky days last week; windy too, but there wasn’t much growth in any of the fires in the Slave Lake Forest Area. An exception was the Blue Sky Fire (#88), which pushed a bit towards the northeast one day, and a bit to the south on another. Marten Beach remained under a two-hour evacuation alert through the week. After a couple of days of rain, that became an eight-hour alert.

A notable exception to the trend was the fire between Peerless and Graham Lakes, near the community of Trout Lake. It had been downgraded to ‘being held’ on or about June 7, but on June 11 was again out of control, having broken out of its earlier boundary and started burning new territory. It’s only two kms. from Peerless.

The communities of Red Earth Creek and Trout Lake are also threatened by fires not too far away from them. A lot of work went into building fire breaks, including by burning. Fire #100 is only five kilometres west of Peerless. Fire #92 is 7 kms southeast of Red Earth and 8.5 kms west of Trout Lake.

As of June 15, there had been 118 fires in the Slave Lake Forest Area, with 383,519 hectares (estimated) burned.

As for the Edith Lake Fire, in the Swan Hills, its being held status was maintained, despite a bit of an outbreak on June 10 on the western edge. Firefighters, with help from helicopter bucketers and air tankers, contained the outbreak.

The Blue Sky Fire now has an incident management team imported from the U.S.A. looking after it. It is still out of control, at 13,684 hectares. Highway 88 remained opened last week.