Investigators Flown In To Examine Fire
Thursday, June 02, 2011 at 17:03
A northern forest fire continues to threaten the communities of Wollaston and the Hatchet Lake First Nation.
The blaze has now grown to four thousand, two hundred hectares in size and is still out of control.
Fire management director Steve Roberts says much of the fire is burning away from the community however, and they have managed to set up a perimeter.
He says it is still burning quite close to Wollaston however, and numerous water tankers and ground crews continue their efforts against it.
Speaking earlier this morning, Roberts says they are making some headway.
“As far as the community goes, we’re in a much better position than we were yesterday at noon. Because of what we’ve put in place, because of the activities we’ve had, because of the weather conditions. Again fires this size are really going to be impacted by weather conditions and that’s what we have to watch for.”
Meanwhile investigators were flown in to examine what caused the fire.
Steve Roberts says the blaze began near the southwest corner of the runway.
There was no lightning recorded in the region at the time of the start, so they feel at this point the blaze was man-made.
Roberts says the wind is blowing in from the south but they expect that to change tomorrow.
They’re also hoping to get some rain without lightning.
Meanwhile Saskatchewan’s emergency response director Duane McKay says a wide assortment of charter aircraft, government planes and Canadian military aircraft took part in the evacuation efforts yesterday and last night.
Right now only a handful of RCMP, utility workers and other officials remain in the community.
He says the decision to call in the military was carefully thought out and the operation went smoothly.
“You know I think this was done almost textbook. In terms of using assets, the proper planning went into place – escalating as required. I think this was the way it was supposed to be done.”
As it stands right now 300 evacuees are at the SIAST campus in Prince Albert.
225 more are in the Saskatoon Cosmo Civic Centre, and 675 are at the Saskatoon Soccer Centre.
It’s not clear when they’ll be allowed to return home.
Premier Brad Wall has issued a statement thanking everyone who took part in the evacuation efforts for the two communities.