A new area closure in the Pine Lake area is included in the latest Wood Buffalo Wildfire Update.
The updated closure begins at the Salt River bridge, along the national park boundary line, to Peace Point. It includes the Salt River Day Use Area, all surrounding trails, and the Pine Lake area. It also includes the Salt Plains, which includes the Salt Plains Access Road, Salt Plains Day Use Area, the Whooping Crane roadside pullout, and all surrounding trails.
Yesterday, thanks to cooler temperatures and increased visibility later in the afternoon, fire crews were able to get in the air and continue suppression efforts. Cooler temperatures have persisted today, making for good fire fighting conditions.
In the Pine Lake Complex, the northwestern edge of Fire 7 remains to be approximately 4.5 km from Highway 5, and 25 km from Fort Smith. There is no current risk to the Town of Fort Smith or surrounding areas from this wildfire.
As conditions and visibility allow, helicopters will continue bucketing efforts along Fire 7’s northwestern edge. Structure protection using sprinklers have been installed on values in the Highway 5 area and crews will maintain them as necessary.
Fire personnel are continuing to monitor the fires in the Davidson Lake Complex, using a remote camera. Images are regularly sent to the Incident Management Team each day, which helps to inform them of any changes in fire activity.
Other fires in Wood Buffalo National Park pose no current threat to communities and continue to be monitored by fire personnel. Structure protection will be placed on locations at risk as required.
