Wabasca evacuation order lifted; wildfires still expected to grow in northern Alberta
Posted May 26, 2015 5:30 pm.
Last Updated May 27, 2015 12:15 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A lack of rain in the forecast has fire officials warning the wildfire situation in Alberta will get worse before it gets better.
Of the nearly 70 wildfires current going in Alberta, about 20 are considered out of control and three are garnering the most attention from fire officials.
The first is about 10 kilometres from the hamlet of Wabasca and at one point was about 200 hectares in size. About 90 per cent of the 5,000 displaced Albertans came from the Wabasca area, but the evacuation order there has since been lifted so the wildfire risk there has lessened.
The second is 22 kilometres east of Slave Lake and is about 500 hectares in size, while the third is 40 kilometres northwest of Cold Lake and is the biggest of the three at 10,000 hectares in size.
The Cold Lake blaze is also threatening the road that leads to some oil and gas facilities, but not the sites themselves.
Wildfire Information Officer Geoffrey Driscoll said the upcoming weather isn’t promising.
“Over the next few days, it’s going to continue to be warm and dry, we’re going to see some storms that come in, but the storms that are coming in aren’t going to bring nearly enough rain at this point to quell the fires,” he said, adding it’s not the forecast that’s the issue, but rather the last few weeks of little rain since the snow has melted.
He also said the warm weather is expected to make the current fires bigger.
“Another risk is we’re expecting more lightning tonight, so we’re going to see more fires again this evening,” he said. “Even if there’s not anymore lightning, the warm and dry weather is going to pop any fires that might’ve happened over the past few days that we just haven’t seen yet.”
Driscoll added two of the fires are believed to have been caused by humans, while the Slave Lake one is due to lightning and they continue to urge Albertans to take care of the environment.
“We have to realize that there are 1,500 wildfires every year, over half of which are human-caused and of those are 100 per cent preventable,” he said. “We’re trying to tell people that they need to put out their campfire, that they need to make sure that their off-highway vehicle isn’t starting wildfires, there are a lot of things that people can do.”
