Joe McWilliams

Lakeside Leader

Lightning started a few more fires in the Slave Lake Forest Area last week. Six, for example, as a result of the really big storm on the evening of July 2.

However, probably thanks to the heavy rain that accompanied the storm, as of July 3 only one of the new starts was out of control. That was fire #136, located north of the lake, about 24 kilometres northwest of Marten Beach. It was seven hectares in size as of the July 3 report, but did not appear on the provincial wildfire map.

The Alberta Wildfire Status map didn’t show any new fires as of the following morning. On the other hand, neither did all the fires mentioned in the July 2 report show up on that map. For example, the one 4.2 kilometres east of Kapawe’no First Nation. It was classified as out of control, but at the time of the report was only 0.01 hectares in size.

Another new fire on July 2 was near the East Prairie Métis Settlement. It was at 2.5 hectares and retardant had been laid around the entire thing.

The Blue Sky Fire located on both sides of Hwy. 88 just southeast of Utikuma Lake, was further downgraded last week to under control – meaning Marten Beach residents are no longer under evacuation alert.

One of the fires in the Red Earth East Complex is classified as being held. It’s Fire #95, the one that burned in the narrow neck of land between Peerless and Graham Lakes. Other, bigger fires in the area, continue to be considered as out of control. Fire crews from four different countries are, or have been, working on these fires – Canada, the U.S., Australia and Costa Rica.

ATCO Electric had some good news on July 6; the company had been busy fixing damaged power infrastructure in the Red Earth and Loon River area. The next step was to restore power, it said in the news release, and this would entail a two-hour power interruption in the area. This would be happening sometime between noon on July 7 and 5 p.m. on July 8.

There were 16 active wildfires in the area, as of July 4. The July 5 and 6 update do not provide any new figures. As of July 6, the fire hazard was low, thanks to rain and cooler temperatures over the weekend.

Since January 1 of this year, the Slave Lake Forest Area has seen 133 wildfires, burning approximately 392,000 hectares, as of the last report.