Province Ponders Fire Ban For Long Weekend

Province Ponders Fire Ban For Long Weekend

Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 15:03

 

 

An official with Saskatchewan Environment says a fire ban for the Canada Day long weekend has been considered, but probably won’t happen.

 

Jeanette Krayetski says thunderstorms across the North late yesterday caused as many as 60 new forest fire starts, on top of the ones fire crews are still trying to get a handle on.

 

The fire hazard is listed as “high” or “extreme” in most parts of the northern provincial forest, and the forecast calls for hot weather over the next few days.

 

Krayetski says assuming a fire ban is not ordered, campfire safety will be huge.

 

Meanwhile, Krayetski says they made great progress yesterday on the forest fire threatening Stony Rapids.

 

She says 11 millimetres of rain in the region helped, as did the high humidity levels the rain created.

 

However, Krayetski says lightning strikes from the thunderstorms that brought the rain caused between 50 and 60 new fires across the Northern Provincial Forest last night.

 

It’s too soon to say how serious those blazes are, but Krayetski says initial attack crews did a good job getting to those fires quickly.