Two wildfires in northern Sask. spark concern

Of the eight active fires currently burning in the province, the Rally and Tuff fires in northern Saskatchewan have officials the most concerned.

The Rally fire is near Prince Albert and currently spans 21 hectares. The Tuff fire is near Meadow Lake Provincial Park.

“Crews had good success ( Wednesday) because of the cooler temperatures and higher humidities,” said Steve Roberts, executive director of the wildfire management branch of the Ministry of Environment. “We have heavy equipment crews and helicopters still working on (the Rally) fire.

“The Tuff fire (Wednesday) also got some support from Alberta. We called in a group of their air tankers to support our air tankers for one drop while that fire was flaring up in the afternoon.”

Duane McKay, the province’s commissioner of emergency management and fire safety, said emergency management learned a lot from the 2015 wildfires, including the importance of partnering with the local municipalities.

He said response teams are “working more and more closely with municipalities, both at the elected official level to ensure that individuals that are impacted have control over those decisions that are made affecting their community, and also working very closely with municipalities to ensure that not only do we have a good provincial response but that we are in a supportive role as well with the municipal services.”

Currently, the Rally and Tuff fire areas are under an evacuation alert. McKay said evacuation alerts have two goals: To tell the people in the area to be prepared for an evacuation, and to let the general population know to avoid the area so as not to endanger themselves or hinder firefighting operations going on there.

An actual evacuation is only called when the community is directly threatened.

“Evacuations are really based on two things: Direct threat to the community and the infrastructure that supports that community or access to those communities,” said McKay. “Those would be the indicators that (say) to us that we need to re-evaluate whether it’s safe to be there.

“We recognize evacuations are difficult for the people that have to leave their communities and there is always some sort of impact, so

Crews had good success (Wednesday) because of the cooler temperatures and higher humidities.

we take those things very seriously,” he said.

Roberts said the Rally and Tuff fires are being carefully monitored. “Both of these fires have what we call an instant management team assigned to them, so a group of command staff that are specifically focused on those fires,” he said, “and the remainder of our fire crews remain on alert.

“We’re on high readiness for new fires.”

There have been more than 150 fires in the province to date this year.