The Ministry of Natural Resources had to deploy waterbombers and crews on foot to battle a tall brush fire that broke out along the railroad tracks east of the Noden Causeway on Tuesday afternoon.
The heart of the blaze was located near LCB Logging on Highway 11, with MNR vehicles using the company’s parking lot as they set to stamp out the last of the flames.
Marnie Brown, sector response officer with the MNR, said the cause of the fire, which stretched in spots between Armstrong Road to east of Windy Point, was still under investigation.
She added fighting the fire would take time.
“I expect we’ll probably have staff there until dark and we’ll definitely have staff there in the morning [Wednesday] to finish any additional work that needs to be done,” she noted.
Brown would not comment on whether a criminal investigation was in place, but she did say no structural damage or injuries were reported.
The MNR received calls about the fire around 3 p.m. A number of agencies reported to the scene shortly afterwards, including the Couchiching and Watten fire departments, as well as personnel from CN.
Waterbombers were dispatched from Dryden by the MNR and were at the scene in less than half an hour.
A helicopter circled the area in the early evening to ensure no further fires were active in the area.
While bystanders claimed the fire was caused by sparks produced by a train coming down the tracks and igniting the dry brush, Brown refused to comment or speculate on the cause.
She said that rail traffic would continue to use the tracks, but that “won’t be for some time.”
LCB Logging mechanic Chris Christian was working when the fire broke out and was one of the first to report it. He said a passer-by pulled off the highway to ask about the fire.
“I said ‘What fire?’” he remarked.
Christian said he recalled a train had passed by shortly before.
He went outside and found what looked “like a grass fire, but it was burning all the trees . . . it stunk.” He said the flames grew as high as the power lines that run parallel to the track.
He fought the fire with a hose from the garage—a “straight up garden hose,” he said—until crews came, followed by the helicopter and waterbombers.
“It was pretty cool. I should’ve had my camera,” Christian said, adding the waterbombers drenching the area with water from Rainy Lake was a particularly surreal experience.
“They dropped foam and it looked like wintertime,” he added. “It looked like someone was dropping shaving cream.”
Bob Bird, a crew leader on the scene with the local contingent of FireRangers, arrived around 3:30 p.m. While the situation was significant at that point, “it never grew much more in size.”
“Once we were here, it wasn’t long before the tankers were here,” he noted.
The fire was by no means the worst Bird had seen, but he figured it was probably the most serious so close to Fort Frances so far this season.
While he didn’t offer up any explanation for the fire, Bird stressed proper fire safety is always an issue.
“Lately, there’s been a lot of people day-burning and I think they’ve been talked to about this,” he remarked.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
