The Hanceville Complex fire is seeing a lot of wind that is expected to continue through the night into Saturday.
Speaking at the Riske Camp Friday afternoon, fire information officer Shayne McCool said the wind challenged some of the fire guards yesterday and through the night.
“Our folks were out assessing the situation today to see if anywhere the fire crossed guards and if we needed to attack those areas,” McCool said, noting he would have more information by Friday night. “We saw some significant fire behaviour in the southwest of the fire near the 900 Road.”
In that area, however, the fire was observed burning toward the fire, he said.
“The winds were out of the southeast so they were actually pushing the fire back into itself which was what we were observing. There was also some fire behaviour west of the Fletcher Lake area.”
The fire is now an estimated 218,000 hectares with a perimiter of 587 kilometres.
With the chance of showers and thunderstorms for Friday, McCool said the area has also received a few wind warnings overnight so crews have been advised of the potential for activity and spread of the fire.
As of Thursday, Aug. 17 there are 342 firefighters, 64 pieces of heavy equipment, 13 helicopters, an incident management team and support staff tasked on the fire.
McCool is from Ontario and joined the incident management team on Monday, Aug. 14.
Since he arrived he said some of the nights have been cooler than others.
“Today is a bit of a cooler day and we have higher humidity, but the winds are up so it’s a bit of a trade off. High relative humidity will sometimes reduce fire behaviour, but that said when you have significant winds it could counteract that.”
It is going to depend on which one wins and if there are lots of gusty winds it would be fair to assume they would play a major role in fire behaviour, he said.
While the public may be getting a sense that the fires are calming down, McCool warned although crews are doing their best to contain the fire it is still very volatile.
“There are many evacuation areas within most of the fire and we do want to remind folks it’s not safe to be in the fire area and it’s best to stay away for the time being so we can get a handle on the situation and really contain the fire.”
Shayne McCool, Riske Camp fire information officer
