Rain helps firefighters battle stubborn Saskatchewan wildfire

While a wildfire burning in Saskatchewan’s Fort à la Corne forest remains uncontained, officials say recent weather has curbed its growth.

The English fire, named after nearby historic site the English Cabin, started May 8 east of Prince Albert and grew dramatically over the long weekend, from 5,300 hectares on Friday to 37,500 on Tuesday — nearly twice the size of Saskatoon.

On Thursday morning it had reached an estimated 41,900 hectares. No permanent residents of the area have been forced to leave or been affected by the fire.

During a conference call providing an update on the fire, Steve Roberts, acting vice-president of operations for the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, said rain on Wednesday and overnight “will greatly assist efforts to work on the fire” on Thursday as teams were seeing low levels of smoke and open burning.

An air quality advisory issued by Environment Canada for portions of central Saskatchewan, including Saskatoon and Prince Albert, is no longer in effect as a result.

Rain fell on all parts of the fire but most heavily on the west side, which had been the most active due to recently heavy winds, Roberts said.

“As long as the fire is not reacting to high gusts of wind, which will change some of our tactics, we can make much better progress,” he said. “We had good progress yesterday and we’ll likely see much better progress today.”

Roberts said efforts to determine the extent of damage to surrounding farmland are still underway, although teams are working to determine whether some damage was the result of a “large number” of incidents of agricultural burning in the area prior to the fire.

The only known damage so far, aside from timber values in the area, has been to fence lines and some beehives.

Two teams of additional personnel were dispatched to the fire on Wednesday and Thursday. Teams are working with nearby communities to combat the fire, including eight First Nations fire crews from around the eastern part of the province.

The fire is human-caused and was started within the forest, but an investigation is still underway and no further details are available, Roberts said.