Respect bans on burning, public told

Four fires attended to last week amid dry conditions in southwestern N.S.

Provincial Lands and Forestry fire crews were kept busy late last week and over the past weekend extinguishing a four fires in the Oak Park, Oak Park Lake, Pubnico Lake/Barrington River areas in southwestern Nova Scotia.

“They’re at one right now in Oak Park,” said Lands and Forestry spokesperson Jim Rudderham in an interview on Monday morning, Sept. 10. That fire started Sunday when “someone was burning brush” and it got away from them, he said.

“They’re still working to put that one out,” he said that day. “There’s still some hot spots.”

Fire crews took several days to extinguish a forest fire in the backwoods of the Barrington River south of Pubnico Lake.

“That fire is out,” said Rudderham. “It didn’t get very big. It looks like it started from someone having a camp fire. It’s very dry in Shel- burne. These fires were all started by people. Two were burning brush and two were from camp fires.”

Rudderham noted there had been a 24/7 ban on burning in Shelburne County for well over a week and said people need to start respecting that before something major happens. A similar ban restricting fires was also in place in Yarmouth County over the same period, along with other parts of the province.

On Monday, that no burn ban was extended to include Digby County as 11 counties were under a no burn directive, and seven others had restrictions in place. The province’s fire restrictions map is updated daily at 2 p.m.