Sarah Mills: Early wildfire season raises questions about prevention
Wildfires have forced thousands of people in Saskatchewan to leave their homes, and the summer hasn't even started yet. ...
The Camp and Shoe fires burning in northern Saskatchewan around Candle Lake and Lower Fishing Lake in Narrow Hills Provincial Park have merged. They have now charred an area about four times the size of Saskatoon.
Candle Lake Emergency Fire Chief Jim Arnold held a meeting Tuesday morning to update the situation. He said due to the escalating situation, the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) moved its Incident Command Centre, previously located at Lower Fishing Lake, to the Resort Village community grounds. Over 125 people are working at the centre.
Brent Lutz, at the microphone, Chief Administrative Officer for the Resort Vilage of Candle Lake, speaking at a press conference held Tuesday morning with Fire Chief Jim Arnold, members of the Lakeland Fire Department, Candle Lake Mayor Colleen Lavoie and representatives from the RM of Paddockwood. (Nick Nielsen/paNOW Staff)
Candle Lake requested approval from the SPSA to build a firebreak starting from Minowukaw along Highway 120 towards the Highway 265 junction.
“Our goal is to be fully prepared to protect the Resort Village subdivisions and our neighbours if threatened by wildfire,” said Arnold. “Building this buffer may be one of the only things that saves our community, but we need the support of SPSA to complete the work.”
The combined size of the merged Camp fire, which started north of Snowden, and the Shoe fire, which started near Lower Fishing Lake, is 115,000 hectares. Arnold said the flames were still about 21 kilometres away from Candle Lake, but they advanced 14 km toward the resort village just overnight.
Read more:
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Carey Painchaud a resident of Candle Lake, attended the fire chief’s meeting and said his concern is that he’s heard a lot about the politics of fighting the fires when he thinks there should be “more concern about the people side.”
“If the political (side) is going to take forever to make a decision…we heard the fire chief say we probably have a two-day window here if the wind changes. So, if the wind changes, we got two days to get to Candle Lake and we haven’t started a stitch of work yet because we’re waiting for a potential permit from the government.”
Painchaud said without a firebreak there could be a catastrophic burn of Candle Lake.
“It is imperative that we start working today.”
FIRMS US/Canada is a joint effort by NASA and the USDA Forest Service. (submitted photo/Fire Information for Resource Management System US/Canada)
In the meantime, he said there’s been a mass exodus of trailers, boats and quads and other valuables that cabin owners are moving in anticipation of the worst.
North of Candle Lake, flames are licking the back fences of homes along Lower Fishing Lake. Residents who have stayed back to fight the flames themselves told paNOW they had no choice if they wanted to save their cabins and other structures.
paNOW spoke to several residents who have spent countless hours setting up sprinklers, hauling water, moving dirt and dragging hoses to keep the fires at bay near his lake, Little Bear and East Trout Lake among others in the provincial park.
Two lodges, Pine Ridge and Caribou Creek are still standing, however, the Narrow Hills Hall within the provincial park has burned down. The SPSA previously reported that dozens of campers and trailers and at least four cabins have burned.
Residents in the Moen subdivision – Narrow Hills Provincial Park – are trying to keep the flames from jumping their property line. (Submitted video/Norma Reid)
