Duane Hicks
Rainy River District has seen its first grass fire of 2015, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry reported.
A 4.3-hectare grass fire was reported Tuesday on the wildland reserve in Dawson Township, about 10 km north of Rainy River.
The Dawson fire department initially responded to the blaze, with the MNRF arriving later, at which time both parties worked together to put it “out.”
With the fire season set to officially start April 1, the snow cover is average across the region except in the west end of Rainy River District, where it’s receding.
“We’ve been snow-free in the west end in open areas, fields and whatnot, for pretty close to a week now,” local fire management supervisor Marney Brown said this morning.
“But once you do get into the forested areas, we do have varying degrees of snow still on the ground,” she added.
“And it really depends on how thick the vegetation is and what exposure there is to sun.”
The vegetation in open areas is 100 percent cured—meaning there isn’t any green grass, and the shrubs and other vegetation are highly-flammable because they’re so dry and dead.
“The open areas where we have grass fuels dry out incredibly quickly,” Brown stressed.
“So we could [have] rain or wet snow one day and later on the next day, it’s not unreasonable, under the right conditions, to have fires burn that could quite readily in those fuels,” she noted.
If a fire starts in such an area, traditionally it can move very quickly—even in situations where the fire hazard is not “high.”
“One of the biggest concerns for us right now is burning that’s taking place in areas that are snow-free,” Brown said.
“Despite the time of season and the cooler temperatures that we’re still experiencing, there’s still the possibility of fires occurring.
“If people are doing some burning, make sure that they contact municipalities to see if there are some additional permitting requirements or restrictions they need to take into consideration,” she added.
The 2015 fire season runs April 1-Oct. 31. The start means the Forest Fire Prevention Act is in effect and burning during the day is prohibited without a permit.
Anyone who wants to do any burning at all should contact their local municipality.
The start of the fire season also means MNRF personnel start to come on board.
“We bring in the fire crews in a phased approach,” Brown explained.
“April 1 we’ll see our first round of staff coming in from FireRanger crews; that’s generally our crew leaders that start April 1.
“And then the following week, we bring in another contingency of staff to further beef up our complement, and then the week after, we’ll bring on more staff,” she added.
“We’ll be up at our full staffing complement by early May, but by April 13 we’ll probably be at 70 percent.”
Fort Frances has a full complement of 10 FireRanger crews, each consisting of four firefighters.
