The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) has extended the provincial fire ban for Crown land and provincial parks.
The ban covers any open fires, controlled burns or fireworks and was put in place on July 2 due to hot and dry conditions.
SPSA vice-president of operations Steve Roberts said the ban was extended as hot weather is expected for the coming days and lightning.
“We will get precipitation but that precipitation will be with lightning in most cases, further escalating our concerns,” Roberts said Thursday.
Roberts said the fire ban will remain in place until at least Monday, when it will be reviewed again.
Currently, there are 16 more wildfires since last week, bringing the total active fires up to 30 in the province.
Of those 30 fires, three are particularly of concern to the SPSA due to their proximity of 20 kilometres to neighbouring towns and villages.
The three fires of concern are Stallard in northern Saskatchewan, which is close to the communities of Stony Rapids and Black Lake, Lock in northwest Saskatchewan near Dillon and Michel Village, and the Pothole fire, which is close to Stanley Mission in north central Saskatchewan.
“All of those are full-response fires because of the community’s potential threat and are being resourced with ground crews, aircraft and heavy equipment where we can get those pieces of equipment into the fire,” Roberts said.
Roberts said no evacuation alerts have been issued yet, but some residents from Dillon have voluntarily evacuated due to medical reasons.
The SPSA has community service officers who work directly with community leaders when fire hazards increase.
“We can provide them with real-time information of the risk and what proactive measures they can take up into and including if they must take more extreme measures if we said the risk escalated or whether they can back off those measures because the risk is dropping.”
As for his message for people living in those communities, Roberts said to be cautious with fire, be prepared to stay in your home if access is cut off, and know what to take with you if evacuations occur.
Roberts said this is standard messaging for any type of emergency.
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