Evacuated Workers Return To Fire-Threatened Mine

Evacuated Workers Return To Fire-Threatened Mine

Wednesday, July 05, 2006 at 14:40

Evacuated workers at a gold mine north of La Ronge are back on the job today.

Roughly half of the Seebee mine’s 140 employees were sent away a few days ago after a lightning strike started a large forest fire that came within four kilometres of the mine site.

Claude Resources spokesman Neil McMillan says the fire has since burned away from the mine, and the fire suppression infrastructure at the mine site has been upgraded — that’s why the workers were called back.

He says if the wind blows the fire back towards the site, the only real concern would be the workers’ living quarters. Sprinklers have been set up in the camp.

McMillan is also praising Saskatchewan Environment personnel for helping make the mine site more secure.

Meanwhile, he says the evacuations did not affect production at the mine, as the skeleton staff left behind was able to handle the regular workload.