Six new fires have been reported in the Wood Buffalo National Park in the most recent update.
These six fires were caused by lightning from large thunderstorm cells that passed over the park on both June 29th and 30th evenings. There are 68 fire personnel and seven helicopters responding to the Pine Lake Complex and recently confirmed fires in Wood Buffalo National Park.
Fire 17 is approximately 13 hectares in size and located 1.9 km north of Fire 7’s northern edge. Yesterday, crews continued working hard and successfully established a 15-ft wide cold perimeter around the entire fire. This fire, which was detected and started being actioned two days ago, is now classified as Being Held. That means it is not expected to grow outside its current boundaries. Crews, with support as needed from helicopter bucketing, will continue to work on this fire today and work toward establishing a 100-ft wide perimeter. It is 30 km from Fort Smith and poses no current risk to any communities.
Fire 16 is located approximately 33 km north of Highway 5 and was last measured at five hectares. Two crews with helicopters were dispatched as soon as it was detected, and they spent yesterday continuing to action it. Their quick and effective work led to this fire to now be classified as Being Held.
Fire 18, Fire 19, Fire 20 and Fire 21 currently pose no risk to any communities and are burning in remote areas of the park. They are being monitored by Wood Buffalo National Park fire personnel and structure protection will be put on values at risk (cabins and other infrastructure) in the area as needed.
In the Pine Lake Complex, the last few days of hot and dry weather challenged fire personnel’s work along the northern edge of Fire 7 – under these more extreme conditions, no smoke or hot spots were found on this perimeter. Fire crew members’ hard work along the north line paid off! A fire crew has been patrolling the northern perimeter for the last three days and haven’t detected any hot spots.
Recent weather and wind conditions may be favourable to continue a carefully planned ignition in the Pine Lake area. This ignition was started on Friday (June 30), but a large storm cell brought heavy rains and wind gusts, which ended ignition early due to conditions no longer being met.
Structure protection continues to be run as necessary on cabins and infrastructure in the Pine Lake area. Crews are continuing to put out hot spots along a few dozer guards south of Pine Lake.
Fire 7 was last estimated at 40,698 hectares and is still approximately 32 km from Fort Smith and 1 km northwest of Pine Lake. Fire 2 was last mapped at 22,426 hectares and is 3.5 km from Pine Lake and 56 km from Fort Smith.
