The Green Zone: Riders' Jeremy O'Day preparing for 2025
5h ago
O'Day discusses Trevor Harris and changes to be made to get the Riders back to the Grey Cup.
A fire that started in the Lumsden valley Thursday afternoon is under control but the smell of smoke still lingered Friday morning.
Lumsden Fire sent out a tweet late Thursday saying the fire would be monitored through the night.
Smoke from Lumsden grass fire on April 26, 2018. (Brett Esplen)
Fire crews from Craven, Regina Beach and Regina responded to help battle the blaze on a warm and windy day.
The Fire Cheif has now issued a fire ban for the town of Lumsden and the RM of Lumsden until further notice.
Brenda Theaker lives on an acreage near Lumsden. She said the fire started around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon.
“At that time it was only maybe a foot high, running along the highway and it moved so fast,” she said.
She said within an hour, the place where she had taken some photos was burnt.
Theaker said the fire started approaching a nearby horse facility and “you could see the flames were getting high.”
Luckily the fire stopped before it reached the facility.
Chris Thiessen is the executive director of the Dallas Valley Ranch Camp which is located in the Lumsden valley.
He said he learned about the fire after his neighbour called to say it was moving quick.
“Thankfully we had lots of good neighbours, community volunteers and firefighters that came out and we fought the fire at our neighbour’s places,” Thiessen explained.
Thiessen is thankful for the support in keeping the fire away from their property.
“As it came down, it got closer and closer to us, thankfully we were able to cut it off right before our property line,” he said.
Thiessen said he didn’t lose any buildings, but he did hear that Happy Hollow (formerly known as Pumpkin Hollow) lost a building or two.
On Friday the camp posted a drone video on Facebook showing the path of the fire through the valley.
A separate fire Thursday night also destroyed a historic big red barn in the area.