Crews worked to contain a wildfire that began burning north west of Grassland, Alta Sunday, while some rural residences were evacuated.
The fire also forced the closure of Hwy 63 from Hwy 55 north to Wandering River.
According to Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD), about twenty firefighters, three helicopters, air tankers and bulldozers are fighting the brush fire that began Sunday afternoon.
Grassland, Boyle, Plamondon, Athabasca and SRD firefighters were on scene.
Geoffrey Driscoll with Alberta Environment and SRD said the fire was threatening some rural farmhouses and ranches.
Around 6:30 p.m. Sunday, SRD said via Twitter that the wildfire had grown to 700 hectares in size.
Grassland is a hamlet in Athabasca County, located about 150 kilometres north east of Edmonton.
There are 54 wildfires burning in the province as of Sunday, including the nearly 400 hectare fire burning by Lodgepole, Alta.
Driscoll says 50 of the wildfires are fully contained.
There have been 284 fires in the province so far this year, all of which have been human-caused and therefore preventable, SRD say.
