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The province of Alberta is on high alert after lightning swept through on Monday night and sparked 50 new fires.
Firefighters were already fighting 25 wildfires on Monday, May 25th when lightning storms came through and tripled their load. “We’ve had long periods of dry, warm weather,” said Geoffrey Driscoll, wildfire management officer. As a result, when lightning came through, it sparked another 50 fires to add to the 25 already burning. All 75 fires remain burning on Tuesday.
Wabasca wildfire. (Photo Credit: Alberta Wildfire Info)
The fire with the most impact is burning a few kilometres away from Wabasca in northern Alberta. The wildfire is out of control and currently estimated at 200 hectares in size. Approximately 3750 evacuated residents have registered for this fire.
The largest wildfire is currently burning about 40 km northwest of Cold Lake. This blaze is estimated at 10,000 hectares and has caused two gas plants in the area to be evacuated. Though the fire isn’t threatening the gas plants themselves, the flames are threatening the road that acts as the one way in and out of the plants.
The smoke from the Cold Lake fire over the weekend. (Photo Credit: Alberta Wildfire Info)
The third wildfire of note in Alberta is about 22 km away from Slave Lake. This blaze grew to about 500 hectares on Monday, forcing the evacuation of some homes in a subdivision over 20 km away from Slave Lake.
“We’re busy, “ says Driscoll, saying that the province knew the lightning was coming and put a fire ban in effect as a result. “We can’t stop the lightning fires. Those are necessary fires that our firefighters have to fight. However, we’re trying to stop as much as we can the unnecessary fires, the ones that are human-caused so that our firefighters don’t have to waste their time on those.”
Alberta received 126 firefighters from Ontario on Friday, and currently 1300 firefighters are at work across the province.
Wildfire burning 22 km away from Slave Lake. (Photo Credit: Alberta Wildfire Info)
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