Conflagration simulation helps prepare for fire season
Our View: Station Fire burns for second review
Read more: http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_15141467#ixzz0pDT6Rxye
Conflagration simulation helps prepare for fire season
24 May 2010
published by www.yakima-herald.com
Haunted by specters of raging wildfires and horrific personal injuries, Arizona cities are preparing a counterattack on fireworks that were legalized this month by the state Legislature.
Selling consumer fireworks such as sparklers, ground-based fountains, pinwheels and snakes will be legal in Arizona as of Dec. 1 because of House Bill 2246. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, and was signed May 10 by Gov. Jan Brewer.
Unlike a similar bill that Brewer vetoed last year, the new law allows cities to ban or restrict the use of such devices, and several are likely to do just that.
“There’s nobody within any of the mountain communities that feels fireworks and the forests are a good mix,” said Eric Kriwer, a division chief and spokesman for the Prescott Fire Department.
Kriwer said he has been in touch with fire departments across northern and eastern Arizona to see if the cities can develop a united front on the issue. One question is whether to ban the devices outright or allow their use when fire danger is low.
It’s an issue not just in the high country, where several towns have suffered disaster or had close calls over the past two decades. Valley cities also are concerned.
Mesa Councilman Scott Somers, who is a paramedic and fire engineer with the Phoenix Fire Department, said fire officials from across the Valley will meet next week to map a strategy.
The aim, he said, is “a rational law that restricts the use of fireworks near the wildland-urban interface but perhaps allows them in areas that are not susceptible” to wildfires.
“Wildland-urban interface” is a term firefighters and forest managers use to describe areas where homes are built close to, or even amid, fire-prone forests and desert vegetation. The Valley has several such areas.
“My nightmare scenario,” Somers said, “is a group of teenagers who buy fireworks, go out in the desert by Usery Mountain, light a brushfire, can’t put it out, and it carries right into homes. That’s the challenge we’re going to face.”
Although dry lightning causes numerous Arizona wildfires, including the 1995 Rio Fire in the McDowell Mountains north of Scottsdale and the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire, people are responsible for many others – sometimes accidentally and sometimes not.
Republic archives contain no records of major Arizona wildland fires caused by fireworks, but some urban fires have been.
In July 1987, fireworks ignited hay sheds at Turf Paradise; the blaze burned for two days. Two years later, fireworks torched a Phoenix home; four firefighters escaped serious injury when they fell through the roof.
A committee of the Mesa City Council planned this week to talk about a fireworks ordinance, but backed off when it learned the League of Arizona Cities and Towns is working on a model ordinance that cities can use.
“There have been a few (cities) that actually asked us if we would assist them in drafting an ordinance,” said Dale Wiebusch, the league’s legislative associate.
A unified approach makes sense, said Mesa Fire Department spokesman Mike Dunn. “I think we all need to be on the same page, but I don’t know what that page is yet,” he said.
Somers said fireworks also could cause problems in unincorporated areas. He said counties might need to draft laws.
Scottsdale, meanwhile, is likely to act soon, said that city’s fire marshal, Jim Ford.
“At this point, we’re putting together something that we can take to council,” he said. “With us here in Scottsdale, a third of our city is preserve, and citizens have paid for that.”
Ford said he knows of at least two cases where small fires in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve were started with bottle rockets, which will remain illegal.
It’s not just the threat of wildfires that concerns firefighters.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 people died and an estimated 9,200 people required hospital treatment in 2006 for fireworks-related injuries in the United States. Sparklers caused 1,000 of those injuries and one-third of the people hurt by sparklers were younger than 5.
Kriwer said statistics from the National Fire Prevention Association showed 36 percent of fireworks-related injuries in 2007 were caused by the types of devices that Arizona is legalizing.
“Why in the world anybody would allow their children to play with these things is beyond me,” Somers said. “The tip of a sparkler burns at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. We scream at our children if they try to touch a sheet of cookies that just came out of the oven at 450 degrees, but we’ll hand them a sparkler. I don’t get that.”
Haunted by specters of raging wildfires and horrific personal injuries, Arizona cities are preparing a counterattack on fireworks that were legalized this month by the state Legislature.
Selling consumer fireworks such as sparklers, ground-based fountains, pinwheels and snakes will be legal in Arizona as of Dec. 1 because of House Bill 2246. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, and was signed May 10 by Gov. Jan Brewer.
Unlike a similar bill that Brewer vetoed last year, the new law allows cities to ban or restrict the use of such devices, and several are likely to do just that.
“There’s nobody within any of the mountain communities that feels fireworks and the forests are a good mix,” said Eric Kriwer, a division chief and spokesman for the Prescott Fire Department.
Kriwer said he has been in touch with fire departments across northern and eastern Arizona to see if the cities can develop a united front on the issue. One question is whether to ban the devices outright or allow their use when fire danger is low.
It’s an issue not just in the high country, where several towns have suffered disaster or had close calls over the past two decades. Valley cities also are concerned.
Mesa Councilman Scott Somers, who is a paramedic and fire engineer with the Phoenix Fire Department, said fire officials from across the Valley will meet next week to map a strategy.
The aim, he said, is “a rational law that restricts the use of fireworks near the wildland-urban interface but perhaps allows them in areas that are not susceptible” to wildfires.
“Wildland-urban interface” is a term firefighters and forest managers use to describe areas where homes are built close to, or even amid, fire-prone forests and desert vegetation. The Valley has several such areas.
“My nightmare scenario,” Somers said, “is a group of teenagers who buy fireworks, go out in the desert by Usery Mountain, light a brushfire, can’t put it out, and it carries right into homes. That’s the challenge we’re going to face.”
Although dry lightning causes numerous Arizona wildfires, including the 1995 Rio Fire in the McDowell Mountains north of Scottsdale and the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire, people are responsible for many others – sometimes accidentally and sometimes not.
Republic archives contain no records of major Arizona wildland fires caused by fireworks, but some urban fires have been.
In July 1987, fireworks ignited hay sheds at Turf Paradise; the blaze burned for two days. Two years later, fireworks torched a Phoenix home; four firefighters escaped serious injury when they fell through the roof.
A committee of the Mesa City Council planned this week to talk about a fireworks ordinance, but backed off when it learned the League of Arizona Cities and Towns is working on a model ordinance that cities can use.
“There have been a few (cities) that actually asked us if we would assist them in drafting an ordinance,” said Dale Wiebusch, the league’s legislative associate.
A unified approach makes sense, said Mesa Fire Department spokesman Mike Dunn. “I think we all need to be on the same page, but I don’t know what that page is yet,” he said.
Somers said fireworks also could cause problems in unincorporated areas. He said counties might need to draft laws.
Scottsdale, meanwhile, is likely to act soon, said that city’s fire marshal, Jim Ford.
“At this point, we’re putting together something that we can take to council,” he said. “With us here in Scottsdale, a third of our city is preserve, and citizens have paid for that.”
Ford said he knows of at least two cases where small fires in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve were started with bottle rockets, which will remain illegal.
It’s not just the threat of wildfires that concerns firefighters.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 people died and an estimated 9,200 people required hospital treatment in 2006 for fireworks-related injuries in the United States. Sparklers caused 1,000 of those injuries and one-third of the people hurt by sparklers were younger than 5.
Kriwer said statistics from the National Fire Prevention Association showed 36 percent of fireworks-related injuries in 2007 were caused by the types of devices that Arizona is legalizing.
“Why in the world anybody would allow their children to play with these things is beyond me,” Somers said. “The tip of a sparkler burns at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. We scream at our children if they try to touch a sheet of cookies that just came out of the oven at 450 degrees, but we’ll hand them a sparkler. I don’t get that.”
Haunted by specters of raging wildfires and horrific personal injuries, Arizona cities are preparing a counterattack on fireworks that were legalized this month by the state Legislature.
Selling consumer fireworks such as sparklers, ground-based fountains, pinwheels and snakes will be legal in Arizona as of Dec. 1 because of House Bill 2246. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, and was signed May 10 by Gov. Jan Brewer.
Unlike a similar bill that Brewer vetoed last year, the new law allows cities to ban or restrict the use of such devices, and several are likely to do just that.
“There’s nobody within any of the mountain communities that feels fireworks and the forests are a good mix,” said Eric Kriwer, a division chief and spokesman for the Prescott Fire Department.
Kriwer said he has been in touch with fire departments across northern and eastern Arizona to see if the cities can develop a united front on the issue. One question is whether to ban the devices outright or allow their use when fire danger is low.
It’s an issue not just in the high country, where several towns have suffered disaster or had close calls over the past two decades. Valley cities also are concerned.
Mesa Councilman Scott Somers, who is a paramedic and fire engineer with the Phoenix Fire Department, said fire officials from across the Valley will meet next week to map a strategy.
The aim, he said, is “a rational law that restricts the use of fireworks near the wildland-urban interface but perhaps allows them in areas that are not susceptible” to wildfires.
“Wildland-urban interface” is a term firefighters and forest managers use to describe areas where homes are built close to, or even amid, fire-prone forests and desert vegetation. The Valley has several such areas.
“My nightmare scenario,” Somers said, “is a group of teenagers who buy fireworks, go out in the desert by Usery Mountain, light a brushfire, can’t put it out, and it carries right into homes. That’s the challenge we’re going to face.”
Although dry lightning causes numerous Arizona wildfires, including the 1995 Rio Fire in the McDowell Mountains north of Scottsdale and the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire, people are responsible for many others – sometimes accidentally and sometimes not.
Republic archives contain no records of major Arizona wildland fires caused by fireworks, but some urban fires have been.
In July 1987, fireworks ignited hay sheds at Turf Paradise; the blaze burned for two days. Two years later, fireworks torched a Phoenix home; four firefighters escaped serious injury when they fell through the roof.
A committee of the Mesa City Council planned this week to talk about a fireworks ordinance, but backed off when it learned the League of Arizona Cities and Towns is working on a model ordinance that cities can use.
“There have been a few (cities) that actually asked us if we would assist them in drafting an ordinance,” said Dale Wiebusch, the league’s legislative associate.
A unified approach makes sense, said Mesa Fire Department spokesman Mike Dunn. “I think we all need to be on the same page, but I don’t know what that page is yet,” he said.
Somers said fireworks also could cause problems in unincorporated areas. He said counties might need to draft laws.
Scottsdale, meanwhile, is likely to act soon, said that city’s fire marshal, Jim Ford.
“At this point, we’re putting together something that we can take to council,” he said. “With us here in Scottsdale, a third of our city is preserve, and citizens have paid for that.”
Ford said he knows of at least two cases where small fires in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve were started with bottle rockets, which will remain illegal.
It’s not just the threat of wildfires that concerns firefighters.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 people died and an estimated 9,200 people required hospital treatment in 2006 for fireworks-related injuries in the United States. Sparklers caused 1,000 of those injuries and one-third of the people hurt by sparklers were younger than 5.
Kriwer said statistics from the National Fire Prevention Association showed 36 percent of fireworks-related injuries in 2007 were caused by the types of devices that Arizona is legalizing.
“Why in the world anybody would allow their children to play with these things is beyond me,” Somers said. “The tip of a sparkler burns at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. We scream at our children if they try to touch a sheet of cookies that just came out of the oven at 450 degrees, but we’ll hand them a sparkler. I don’t get that.”
Haunted by specters of raging wildfires and horrific personal injuries, Arizona cities are preparing a counterattack on fireworks that were legalized this month by the state Legislature.
Selling consumer fireworks such as sparklers, ground-based fountains, pinwheels and snakes will be legal in Arizona as of Dec. 1 because of House Bill 2246. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, and was signed May 10 by Gov. Jan Brewer.
Unlike a similar bill that Brewer vetoed last year, the new law allows cities to ban or restrict the use of such devices, and several are likely to do just that.
“There’s nobody within any of the mountain communities that feels fireworks and the forests are a good mix,” said Eric Kriwer, a division chief and spokesman for the Prescott Fire Department.
Kriwer said he has been in touch with fire departments across northern and eastern Arizona to see if the cities can develop a united front on the issue. One question is whether to ban the devices outright or allow their use when fire danger is low.
It’s an issue not just in the high country, where several towns have suffered disaster or had close calls over the past two decades. Valley cities also are concerned.
Mesa Councilman Scott Somers, who is a paramedic and fire engineer with the Phoenix Fire Department, said fire officials from across the Valley will meet next week to map a strategy.
The aim, he said, is “a rational law that restricts the use of fireworks near the wildland-urban interface but perhaps allows them in areas that are not susceptible” to wildfires.
“Wildland-urban interface” is a term firefighters and forest managers use to describe areas where homes are built close to, or even amid, fire-prone forests and desert vegetation. The Valley has several such areas.
“My nightmare scenario,” Somers said, “is a group of teenagers who buy fireworks, go out in the desert by Usery Mountain, light a brushfire, can’t put it out, and it carries right into homes. That’s the challenge we’re going to face.”
Although dry lightning causes numerous Arizona wildfires, including the 1995 Rio Fire in the McDowell Mountains north of Scottsdale and the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire, people are responsible for many others – sometimes accidentally and sometimes not.
Republic archives contain no records of major Arizona wildland fires caused by fireworks, but some urban fires have been.
In July 1987, fireworks ignited hay sheds at Turf Paradise; the blaze burned for two days. Two years later, fireworks torched a Phoenix home; four firefighters escaped serious injury when they fell through the roof.
A committee of the Mesa City Council planned this week to talk about a fireworks ordinance, but backed off when it learned the League of Arizona Cities and Towns is working on a model ordinance that cities can use.
“There have been a few (cities) that actually asked us if we would assist them in drafting an ordinance,” said Dale Wiebusch, the league’s legislative associate.
A unified approach makes sense, said Mesa Fire Department spokesman Mike Dunn. “I think we all need to be on the same page, but I don’t know what that page is yet,” he said.
Somers said fireworks also could cause problems in unincorporated areas. He said counties might need to draft laws.
Scottsdale, meanwhile, is likely to act soon, said that city’s fire marshal, Jim Ford.
“At this point, we’re putting together something that we can take to council,” he said. “With us here in Scottsdale, a third of our city is preserve, and citizens have paid for that.”
Ford said he knows of at least two cases where small fires in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve were started with bottle rockets, which will remain illegal.
It’s not just the threat of wildfires that concerns firefighters.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 people died and an estimated 9,200 people required hospital treatment in 2006 for fireworks-related injuries in the United States. Sparklers caused 1,000 of those injuries and one-third of the people hurt by sparklers were younger than 5.
Kriwer said statistics from the National Fire Prevention Association showed 36 percent of fireworks-related injuries in 2007 were caused by the types of devices that Arizona is legalizing.
“Why in the world anybody would allow their children to play with these things is beyond me,” Somers said. “The tip of a sparkler burns at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. We scream at our children if they try to touch a sheet of cookies that just came out of the oven at 450 degrees, but we’ll hand them a sparkler. I don’t get that.”
Haunted by specters of raging wildfires and horrific personal injuries, Arizona cities are preparing a counterattack on fireworks that were legalized this month by the state Legislature.
Selling consumer fireworks such as sparklers, ground-based fountains, pinwheels and snakes will be legal in Arizona as of Dec. 1 because of House Bill 2246. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, and was signed May 10 by Gov. Jan Brewer.
Unlike a similar bill that Brewer vetoed last year, the new law allows cities to ban or restrict the use of such devices, and several are likely to do just that.
“There’s nobody within any of the mountain communities that feels fireworks and the forests are a good mix,” said Eric Kriwer, a division chief and spokesman for the Prescott Fire Department.
Kriwer said he has been in touch with fire departments across northern and eastern Arizona to see if the cities can develop a united front on the issue. One question is whether to ban the devices outright or allow their use when fire danger is low.
It’s an issue not just in the high country, where several towns have suffered disaster or had close calls over the past two decades. Valley cities also are concerned.
Mesa Councilman Scott Somers, who is a paramedic and fire engineer with the Phoenix Fire Department, said fire officials from across the Valley will meet next week to map a strategy.
The aim, he said, is “a rational law that restricts the use of fireworks near the wildland-urban interface but perhaps allows them in areas that are not susceptible” to wildfires.
“Wildland-urban interface” is a term firefighters and forest managers use to describe areas where homes are built close to, or even amid, fire-prone forests and desert vegetation. The Valley has several such areas.
“My nightmare scenario,” Somers said, “is a group of teenagers who buy fireworks, go out in the desert by Usery Mountain, light a brushfire, can’t put it out, and it carries right into homes. That’s the challenge we’re going to face.”
Although dry lightning causes numerous Arizona wildfires, including the 1995 Rio Fire in the McDowell Mountains north of Scottsdale and the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire, people are responsible for many others – sometimes accidentally and sometimes not.
Republic archives contain no records of major Arizona wildland fires caused by fireworks, but some urban fires have been.
In July 1987, fireworks ignited hay sheds at Turf Paradise; the blaze burned for two days. Two years later, fireworks torched a Phoenix home; four firefighters escaped serious injury when they fell through the roof.
A committee of the Mesa City Council planned this week to talk about a fireworks ordinance, but backed off when it learned the League of Arizona Cities and Towns is working on a model ordinance that cities can use.
“There have been a few (cities) that actually asked us if we would assist them in drafting an ordinance,” said Dale Wiebusch, the league’s legislative associate.
A unified approach makes sense, said Mesa Fire Department spokesman Mike Dunn. “I think we all need to be on the same page, but I don’t know what that page is yet,” he said.
Somers said fireworks also could cause problems in unincorporated areas. He said counties might need to draft laws.
Scottsdale, meanwhile, is likely to act soon, said that city’s fire marshal, Jim Ford.
“At this point, we’re putting together something that we can take to council,” he said. “With us here in Scottsdale, a third of our city is preserve, and citizens have paid for that.”
Ford said he knows of at least two cases where small fires in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve were started with bottle rockets, which will remain illegal.
It’s not just the threat of wildfires that concerns firefighters.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 people died and an estimated 9,200 people required hospital treatment in 2006 for fireworks-related injuries in the United States. Sparklers caused 1,000 of those injuries and one-third of the people hurt by sparklers were younger than 5.
Kriwer said statistics from the National Fire Prevention Association showed 36 percent of fireworks-related injuries in 2007 were caused by the types of devices that Arizona is legalizing.
“Why in the world anybody would allow their children to play with these things is beyond me,” Somers said. “The tip of a sparkler burns at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. We scream at our children if they try to touch a sheet of cookies that just came out of the oven at 450 degrees, but we’ll hand them a sparkler. I don’t get that.”
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/05/21/20100521arizona-fireworks-ban.html#ixzz0pDLNJ3yN
CLE ELUM, Wash. — A roomful of people did something constructive last week by being, in a metaphorical sense, utterly destructive.
Packed into a conference room at Suncadia, more than 50 representatives of municipalities, fire districts, county and city law enforcement, state and federal agencies tore down the jurisdictional walls between them.
They did it to fight a large, albeit fictitious, wildfire. They’ll need the practice at working together to face just such a fire while coping with limited resources and hard choices about what can or can’t be saved in a wildland fire, just like the ones they faced Thursday.
After a century of fire suppression, our forests are now fully fueled tinderboxes, and those experts know: Their bit of fiction will become fact soon enough.
“It’s not if it happens,” noted one Forest Service representative. “It’s when it happens.”
The scenario is unveiled on an interactive Google map projected on a large screen. It’s Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010, and the summer wildfire season is about to hit home.
An incoming high-pressure system will bring days, perhaps weeks, of hotter, drier weather — conditions almost certain to feed the numerous fires ignited throughout the Cascades by the previous day’s lightning.
One of those is a 60-acre blaze in western Kittitas County dubbed the Pine Glen Fire, for its proximity to the small community of that name east of Easton and north of Interstate 90. Still in its infancy, the blaze doesn’t pose an immediate risk to nearby homes. But it’s nearing high-tension power lines and, should the westerly winds kick up as expected, might well threaten the Suncadia resort, Roslyn and even Cle Elum.
The timing could not be worse. Resources are already stretched to the limit.
Across the country, 44 large fires are burning uncontrolled, with much of the northern Rockies suffering through a dreadful drought.
The highest-priority fire sucking up the biggest chunk of the nation’s shared firefighting resources is an inferno that has already roared through a ski resort and a subdivision west of Denver, destroying 57 buildings and shutting down Interstate 70. In its path are even more subdivisions, including some of the state’s priciest real estate.
In the Pacific Northwest, the top priority is the Horn Gulch Fire in southwest Oregon. It’s burning on thickly forested slopes that haven’t burned in a century. If the fire isn’t controlled soon, the resulting erosion could effectively wipe out the reservoir that serves as Ashland’s sole water supply.
Pine Glen’s emergency responders know this one could turn bad quickly if the decisions they make over the next few days don’t pan out.
But their strategies — or, at least, the decision-making process and priorities behind them — are already in place.
That was all determined in that Suncadia conference room more than two months earlier.
That the decision-makers in that room have to consider catastrophic fires in Colorado and southwest Oregon as part of the modern firefighting landscape. There are only so many firefighters and equipment available, and high-priority wildfires get the lion’s share.
At the height of fire season, there may be 50 to 60 major wildfires burning uncontrolled within the United States. There are 109 hotshot crews — groups of about 20 highly skilled wildland firefighters — in the country. Period.
The nation’s fleet of large, federal air tankers capable of carrying up to 2,000 gallons of fire retardant — which once was as high as 44 — is now down to fewer than 20 as those aircraft, many of them built in the 1950s and ’60s, are grounded for safety reasons.
And the safety of fire responders is paramount.
“We’re averaging 20-plus firefighter fatalities a year,” said Tom Cable of the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO), which coordinated the training session last week. “And we have roughly six aircraft crashes — helicopters and planes — related to fire suppression. And that trend line has steadily gone up.”
Not surprisingly, the brainchild that led to these NIMO simulated-fire workshops around wildland fire-prone areas of the country, now in their second year, came from two elite, Montana-based firefighters. Both of them, smokejumper Billy Phillips and hotshot Matt Gibson, were at Thursday’s event.
“The reason we built the (simulation),” Gibson said, “is that you can create all of the risk situations without putting anybody at risk. The more mistakes you uncover in training, the better off you’ll be when the real event comes.”
So those working on the simulated Pine Glen Fire prioritized and developed strategies for everything they could think of.
Weather. Topography. Thickness of fire fuels that might accelerate the fire’s advance. Values at risk should the fire spread in any direction, and prioritizing them all. Possible evacuations. Updating the public. How to deal with the fire near the power lines without putting firefighters at risk of electrocution from arcing lines.
Basically, they considered anything and everything, right down to what Yakima River Division fire management officer Mike Starkovich called “those 30,000 rubberneckers moving through that (I-90) corridor.”
So if — or when — Washington’s next big wildfire breaks out, those officials will know what to expect because they’ve already considered every option.
“If we can work together to make better strategy decisions early on,” Cable said, “the hope is that we will reduce those trends, reduce the risk to firefighters and, in the end, we’ll save money.”
Last Updated: Thursday, May 20, 2010 | 6:49 PM CTComments21Recommend16
CBC News
A 3,500-hectare fire continued to consume forest near Berens River First Nation on Thursday.(Province of Manitoba)Fifty-five people from Berens River First Nation were airlifted out of the Manitoba community Wednesday night because of a health hazard posed by billowing smoke from a massive forest fire burning nearby.
Of 136 forest fires currently burning in the province, the one 24 kilometres northeast of the reserve is the largest at 3,500 hectares, fire officials said.
About 80 firefighters are battling the fire, and the province is using water bombers and other aircraft to try and contain it.
Fire officials said they believe a person set the fire but can’t say yet whether they did so intentionally.
People living on the reserve were forced out largely because the smoke was so thick it presented a health hazard for people with respiratory problems.
Three planes were contracted to airlift them to Winnipeg, about 270 kilometres southwest of the reserve.
Rene McKay told CBC News he’s lived on the reserve all his life and has never seen such heavy smoke.
“Never not that close anyway. It was quite heavy, McKay said.
Officials said the fire poses no threat to homes or other buildings in the community.
The fire risk is high throughout the area because it has been an extremely dry spring, officials said.
Billowing smoke from the fire forced the province to airlift 55 people from the community on Wednesday night. (Province of Manitoba)
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/05/20/man-berens-river-forest-fire.html#ixzz0pDI9Rvfp
Billowing smoke from the fire forced the province to airlift 55 people from the community on Wednesday night. (Province of Manitoba)
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/05/20/man-berens-river-forest-fire.html#ixzz0pDIsVG00
