Two wildfires in northern areas are posing concerns, the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) said on Friday.
Vice-president of operations Steve Roberts said the province is facing some “extreme” fire conditions with high heat and low precipitation.
“The first in the far north is called the Briggs fire. It started June 29 in the afternoon. By … 8 p.m. the next day, it had exceeded 1,500 hectares. The fire is adjacent to the Cigar Lake mining facility,” he said.
“(Cameco) self-evacuated non-essential workers because the fire at the time was coming closer to their airport, which is their primary way of moving staff in and out of that facility. Since that time, they do have road access so they can bring some staff back if they need them to augment their resources that remain behind.
“The fire is being managed and there has been no report of structure losses due to this fire. Current operations continue to protect mine infrastructure, and currently, there are area operations to burn off critical fuel in the area to prevent the fire from re-approaching the mine site.”
Roberts said the blaze is burning the forest around the mine site and causing the disturbance and safety risk.
“The site is all cleared. There’s actually very little flammable material at the mine site itself. And all of their material is actually sort of stored in a safe manner,” he said.
“It’s an underground mine so all of the material, that’s underground. We do not anticipate exposure risk from that point of view.”
The Saskatoon-based uranium company said on Friday all of the roughly 80 essential workers who remain at Cigar Lake are safe.
“The wildfire has moved past the main camp area without serious impact to the site itself.… However, the situation remains active,” read a Cameco statement.
“Crews extinguished a few hot spots overnight and some roads in the area remain closed.
“There is currently no timeline for the return to the site of the roughly 230 workers who were evacuated from Cigar Lake or for the resumption of production.”
The second wildfire, known as the Lock fire, is roughly 45 kilometres west of Buffalo Narrows and 3,380 hectares in size.
“No structures have been reported lost on this fire.… Our primary focus is on the eastern side of that fire, which would bring it closer to the Buffalo Narrows,” Roberts said.
“The communities that currently would be closer to the fire over 20 kilometres away are Saint George’s Hill and Dillon Lake.… But that also is the focus of our efforts to prevent migration of this fire eastward towards them.
“We do anticipate we may see localized smoke potentially starting (Friday night) and maybe into (Saturday).… The agency has moved some air cleaners up like industrial air cleaners that can be used in skating rinks or community halls to provide a much cleaner smoke atmosphere for those that might have respiratory issues.”
The SPSA said it has used its air tanker resources to protect assets and for direct attack on the wildfires.
“In addition, we have staff on the ground, both our government crews, our community firefighting crews from our First Nations and northern communities,” Roberts said.
“We are very proactive in ensuring our staff, for instance, stay hydrated. That even on these volatile fires, that they are protected by air resources as well and they’re not put in situations where they cannot manage the risk.
“Our motto here is that we’re working smarter and safer on these fires. Again, for the long term, if we need more crews or more equipment, we bring those in and spell them out. But the heat, as much as it’s affecting the fire behaviour, also has some effect on some of our staffing and resources as well.”
Roberts said the hot weather conditions are also affecting the wildfires.
“We’ll see burning later into the evening, even some fire growth through the night. Typically, when the nights are cooler, humidity comes up, fire behaviour tends to moderate,” he said.
“In our conditions, right now, we’re not seeing as much of that. So we have to plan for that as well. What it means is we may have, for instance, air tankers out far earlier in the day than typically they get deployed to suppress the fires earlier because of the heat.
“That affects our timing and, of course, how long they have to work and how effective they are. Once these fires get to high intensity, high behaviour, some of those tools become less effective, obviously.”
The SPSA has issued a provincial fire ban for all Crown lands and provincial parks at noon on Friday.
“Due to the extreme behaviour, we wish to limit the risk of a human-caused fire start adjacent to communities for any reason so that we can manage the fires till we get a reprieve in the weather,” Roberts said.
“Currently, the fire ban will remain in effect until we see some improvements in the overall weather, so some drops in temperature or moisture. Likely that will not occur for at least three to four days.”
There are currently 16 wildfires burning in Saskatchewan.
For the latest conditions and warnings, download the SkyTracker weather app.
Comments