Sask. wildfires at Garden River controlled, Narrow Hills evacuating
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Residents from the rural municipality of Garden River felt a rush of relief to see a nearby forest fire under control after a close call prompted evacuation last week, said reeve Ryan Scragg.
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“All parties involved did an excellent job,” Scragg said Monday. “Now that people are back in their homes, I think the concern has definitely subsided.”
The two fires near Garden River — located about 40 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert — started last week and burned more than 200 hectares combined, mostly inside the nearby Nisbet Forest.
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The first blaze started the morning of May 5 after wind blew a power line into some trees. The second began Wednesday, about 12 kilometres away, after a piece of machinery ignited inside a garage.
Both were contained as of Monday, largely reduced to smouldering patches inside the forest line, said Garden River fire chief Dave Matthews.
‘An emotional loss’
Two buildings were destroyed within the RM and emergency crews closed the nearby Highway 55 due to smoke, but crews succeeded in keeping the flames from damaging nearby houses and the Aallcaan Wood Suppliers lumber mill.
A cluster of six homes near the highway were evacuated May 5 and the RM declared a state of emergency, which expired May 12. Scragg said the evacuation was successful and short, with residents returning home the following day after the wind shifted.
“Any time you have any loss of a forest, especially something … you can see from the highway along such a major corridor, it is kind of an emotional loss for the community,” Scragg said.
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Matthews said Garden River called in help from the fire departments of nearby RMs and Muskoday First Nation. About 140 firefighters were on the ground at the peak of those incidents, including 30 personnel dispatched from the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA).
“Resources were definitely stretched as thin as they could be,” said Scragg. “But we have a really great system within the fire community in Saskatchewan.”
Garden River’s fires are among several to spark in the area over the last two weeks.
Four houses were lost in a large grass fire on James Smith Cree Nation on May 3 after residents had been evacuated earlier that day. Councillor Alvin Moostoos said the loss was “devastating” but the band council is working to rebuild the lost homes as quickly as possible.
Displaced residents are staying with family or in Melfort hotels for now.
“We’re trying to provide everything for them that they need,” said Moostoos in an interview Monday.
Narrow Hills park also closed
Narrow Hills Provincial Park, located about 140 kilometres north of Prince Albert, was also closed Friday afternoon as a “public safety measure” due to a wildfire northwest of the park spanning approximately 14,500 hectares as of Monday.
Highways in and around the park are shut down as fire crews monitor the situation and the park remains closed until further notice. Lower Fishing Lake and Caribou Creek — located southeast of the fire inside the boundaries of the park — were issued evacuation orders on Friday.
The SPSA reported 18 active wildfires in Saskatchewan as of Monday, seven fewer than before the weekend. With 142 since January, more wildfires have occurred to date this year than the province’s five-year average for the same period.
Quebec’s forest fire prevention agency, SOPFEU, says it will send two CL-415 firefighting aircraft to Ontario and two to Meadow Lake, Sask. this week to assist in wildfire response efforts.
A 1,200-hectare wildfire has been burning near Meadow Lake Provincial Park since May 6, according to the SPSA’s wildfire map.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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