With the snow cover melting and last year’s dry grasses now exposed to the wind, anyone burning within Westlock County is being asked to take extra precautions.
Regional fire chief John Biro issued a fire advisory last Thursday, April 10, cautioning residents to only burn if it’s essential.
“We’re just being proactive,” he said. “It’s starting to dry out and winds are increasing.”
Supervised burning is still allowed within the county, but no new burn permits will be issued for open fires, and fireworks are prohibited. The advisory follows several spring fire calls in surrounding municipalities and also ones that Westlock’s rural departments have responded to.
“We had a burn barrel (fire) already, and a holdover fire,” Biro said.
Crews responded last Tuesday to a call of a smouldering brush pile on a rural property near Range Road 260 and Township Road 604. Biro said he believes that fire was a holdover fire, meaning it was burned some time in the fall or the winter, and has continued to smoulder in the ground until the combination of snow melt and high winds caused the fire to reignite.
He added that despite the wet weather late last week, the fire advisory will remain in effect for the foreseeable future since the rain won’t impact the conditions much.
“It’s not going to make a difference,” he said. “In a few days it will be back to tinder-dry.”
In fact, the wet weather can sometimes cause more problems than it solves — although the combustible materials like grasses dry out very quickly, the ground itself stays muddy, potentially making it difficult to get equipment close to a fire.
As of Sunday, the county’s fire advisory remained in effect, and Biro cautions residents to do daily monitoring on any burn site, even if a fire hasn’t been burning in that location for several months.
For up-to-date information on fire bans and fire advisories, visit www.albertafirebans.ca.
