Fire crews are on alert in the Slave Lake area after the possibility of wildfires increased dramatically overnight.
The risk of a wildfire in Slave Lake has gone from moderate to very high, and Alberta Wildfire gathered in their control room Monday to monitor the small fires that have developed in Northern Alberta so far.
“We started seeing it rise to high and very high, and even a couple of pockets of extreme up in that Fort Chipewyan area,” Wildfire Information Officer Travis Fairweather told CTV News. “You can see the conditions change pretty quickly.”
Fire index maps from @YourAlberta show dramatic change from 2pm May 21 to 8:40am May 22 #yeg #abpoli #ymm pic.twitter.com/bDlkrBqMyu
— Jeremy Thompson (@JThompsonCTV) May 22, 2017
This year’s wildfire season got off to a slow start, a year removed from the Fort McMurray wildfires that forced around 90,000 residents to evacuate the region.
“The 2017 wildfire season really started off slow,” Lesser Slave Fire Chief Jamie Coutts said. “It was super dry in April and then we’re like getting ready for a crazy season, and then all of a sudden it snowed and rained and snowed and rained.”
But with higher temperatures during the long weekend, the possibility of wildfires has increased again.
“As it gets dry and the threat becomes a little higher, every fire is a little more difficult now,” Coutts said.
With files from Jeremy Thompson
