The wildfire danger continues to be EXTREME in the Lac La Biche forest area. The Fire Advisory remains in place. There is potential for this to escalate. Visit albertafirebans.ca for up to the minute information.
The forecast for tomorrow is for a high of 29 with low humidity at 20%, moderate chance of lightning with NO precipitation and winds at SE 15 km/hr. The blow up potential for wildfires tomorrow is moderate, just as it was today. The forest remains very dry and volatile. Exercise extreme caution in the forest, particularly if operating quads in grassy areas.
We had two new fires today, likely associated with the lightning that crossed the area yesterday.
LWF-116 is located northwest of Conklin on the west side of Highway 881. This fire is about 100 hectares and is classified as out of control. Winds tomorrow should keep smoke away from the highway. Crews worked this fire all day, three groups of air tankers dropped retardant around this fire, and heavy equipment is working to establish a dozer guard. If you look carefully, in the photo below, you can see the red retardant line along the smoke boundary. You can also see the start of the dozer guard from the gravel area on the right heading north of the lake. The strategy is to use dozer guard to strengthen the retardant line and hold the fire from moving further. Helicopters will bucket on hotspots or smokes along the edge and spot fires outside of the perimeter, as needed. Ground crews follow up and do the back breaking manual work of ensuring the fire is out in the trees and roots and grass.
LWF-117 is located west of fire LWF-116, in the Bovine area. This fire is about 30 hectares and is classified as out of control. The wheeled 802 Air Tractors worked this fire this afternoon, dropping retardant to box in the fire. There is no heavy equipment on this fire as it is too remote to reach by road. The photo below shows the smokes from this fire. Although you can see multiple "heads" of the fire, or places where the smoke starts, this is all one wildfire.
We still have many active fires in the area that started yesterday. Crews are working on all fires. The most significant fires of note include:
LWF-099, north of Calling Lake and east of Rock Island Lake, is about 1000 hectares, and remains classified as out of control. This wildfire showed aggressive wildfire behavior this afternoon, forcing us to pull all of our ground crews away from the fire for safety reasons. Soon after, the air tankers were also removed from this fire. The plan is to attack this fire again early tomorrow morning, before it gets too active. This area didn't receive any precipitation yesterday. This photo shows active fire and smoke on the north side of the fire this afternoon. It's easy to see why we had to pull crews and airtankers back from this fire.
LWF-108, in the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, is about 30 hectares and is still classified as out of control. Air tankers worked this fire from early this morning until afternoon, supported by helicopters bucketing and ground crews. This area received some precipitation yesterday, which could be the reason this fire was less active than the other large fire from yesterday.
Six smaller fires are under control, and the rest of the wildfires from yesterday have been extinguished.
In addition to the crews assigned to the individual fires, we have 13 crews, 2 air tanker groups, 14 helicopters 8 water trucks and 2 dozer groups ready to fight any new wildfires tomorrow.
Thanks for doing your part to prevent wildfire.
For more information, please contact:
Leslie Lozinski
Wildfire Information Officer
780-623-9758