Duane Hicks
With the forest fire situation continuing to rage in British Columbia, the Ministry of Natural Resources has sent a third wave of assistance to aid efforts there, including personnel from the Fort Frances fire management headquarters.
Local MNR fire operations supervisor Marnie Brown said this morning that three personnel from here were among the 20-member Incident Command Team (ICT) from the West Fire Region dispatched to B.C. yesterday.
Two ICTs—one from the West Fire Region and a similar 22-member team from the East Fire Region—were deployed.
They were accompanied by a provincial lead agency representative to help in the co-ordination of Ontario resources in B.C.
ICTs provide leadership and management on large fire incidents.
This is the third dispatch within a week from Ontario to B.C.
Last Thursday, 122 fire personnel were sent, followed by another 172 on Sunday for a total of 294 Ontario FireRangers and support staff.
Combined with yesterday’s dispatch, that brings the total to 337.
The Fort Frances fire headquarters to date has dispatched four four-person FireRanger crews, one fire management technician, and now three ICT members.
On top of that, Brown noted the local HQ is expected to send out two more FireRanger crews and two more technicians this Saturday.
Given the very little fire activity reported within the region in recent weeks, and, in fact, all of Ontario, this has allowed the MNR to send firefighting resources west.
“The hazard across the entire province right now is very low, so we are trying to help out where we can,” said Brown.
“We continue to monitor the situation locally, and assess the resources we have and what we anticipate having available.
“Of course, if things start to dry up here, then we will be able to scale back on what we are sending out,” she noted.
“As those resources come back, we would be keeping them a little closer to home.
“But the forecast we have right now really isn’t indicating things are going to be warming and drying up anytime soon,” Brown added.
There currently are three active fires in the region—one in Fort Frances District (at Quetico Provincial Park) and two in Red Lake District—covering a total of 2,275.2 hectares.
These fires are listed as “being observed.”
Since April 1, there’s been a total of 170 fires in the region, consuming 13,705.2 ha in all.
