In Alberta the wildfire season officially began on March 1, but until this past weekend the number of grass or wildfires the Barrhead Fire Department had been called out to this season had been relatively few.
But on Saturday, April 2, the fire department responded to reports to two different wildfires almost simultaneously.
The first came at about 4:15 p.m. from the Tiger Lily area and just as fire crews had responded they received a second report.
And to make things more complicated, the two fire scenes were in opposite directions, with the second reported south near the Willow Wilde Cemetery.
Fire Chief John Whittaker said because of the second call out he decided to split his resources equally between the two fires.
“Luckily for us the first fire, by the time we arrived, was mostly contained,” he said, adding that it was a result of a controlled burn that had gotten away from the property owners. “But they were watching it and had a lot of heavy equipment so they made a fire guard around the whole thing and as a result we were able to take care of the fire relatively quickly.”
For the second fire on Township Road 582 near Range Road 23, the department asked for assistance from Busby, in part because of the proximity to the fire and because Whittaker was concerned that they might not have the resources available to combat it before it got out of hand.
He said the quick response by the two stopped the fire before it reached the tree line.
“The fire was actually from a permitted burn, but because of the high winds the fire got away in a number of areas,” Whittaker said.
In addition to Busby and Barrhead a nearby property owner and an independent contractor, who all had bulldozers, helped extinguish the fire by building fireguards and putting out hotspots.
Fire crews were on scene until approximately 9 p.m.
It was the second time the department had been called out to the area in less than a week also on March 31 the fire department was called out to a report of an outside fire just 200 metres north.
“We had a little bit of trouble finding the fire,” Whittaker said, adding the location they were given was the legal-land address. “The legal address only narrows down a location to something like three miles. That’s why it is so important for people to know what their address is. Especially if you live in a rural area, know your green sign address. It really helps us narrow down where we are actually being dispatched to.”
