Bald Mountain Wildfire  May 12, 2023 - photo courtesy AB Wildfire

By Erika Rolling

Wildfires

Regional fire updates

May 13, 2023 | 1:03 PM

The County of Grande Prairie renewed a State of Emergency Friday night. There is no action needed from residents following the action and the evacuation alert and order remain unchanged.

Dunes West

The wildfire remains out of control at an estimated size of 1,581 hectares. The cause of the fire is undetermined at this time.

Fire operations say as of Saturday morning, 80 per cent of wildfire has been contained by dozer-created fire guards, with the Wapiti River acting as a natural fire guard.

Crews continue to build additional fire guards in the Dunes West neighbourhood, north of The Banks at Spring Creek, across from Range Road 65.

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Saturday’s focus is on responding to hot spots detected from a thermal drone scan from overnight and reinforcing the 30 meter perimeter.

Military crews are clearing hot spots and helicopters are still bucketing.

GPREP says firefighters were responding to a fire located in the northern region of the County yesterday when a member of the public using their personal dozer put themselves and crews in danger by knocking down trees into the fire and coming close to running over crews and equipment.

They want to remind the public that no matter how well intented actions are, they should refrain from unsanctioned acts and interrupting fire response.

Clear Hills County

An evacuation alert was issued for the County of Clear Hills as a wildfire north of the Peace River is burning out of control at over 13,000 hectares, and grew by nearly 500 hectares on Friday.

Clear Hills County says Alberta Fire Service crews worked well into the evening on the fire. The fire reached Highway 64 in just a few places; fire crews were able to extinguish the areas as they crossed over to the south side of Highway 64.

They are foreseeing that it will continue to move north towards Highway 64 between the area of Range Road 84 and intersection of Secondary Highway 726 (Worsley).

The County is asking anyone within the area of Range Road 74 north to Township 854 west to Range Road 84 and south to Highway 64 to be alert and prepared to evacuate on one hour notice.

An Alberta Emergency Alert will be issued if an evacuation order is required.

Bald Mountain

Some MD of Greenview residents were put on evacuation order on Friday evening for the Bald Mountain fire.

People living in the area south of Township Road 690, between Highway 40 and the BC Border, are required to evacuate to Grande Prairie and register at Bonnetts Energy Centre.

Those living north of Township Road 690 to the Wapiti River in the MD of Greenview are to be prepared to leave on short notice.

The fire is located 50 kilometres south of Grande Prairie and is burning out of control at 8,362 hectares.

Fire behaviour increased yesterday afternoon and air tankers skimmed water off Musreau Lake to drop on the northwest flank of this wildfire. Officials expected the fire to grow around 20 per cent overnight.

Sturgeon Lake Complex

Two fires near Sturgeon Lake are still actively burning out of control.

The one near Highway 43 (GWF017) is estimated at 3,765 hectares in size. Municipal structural protection along with Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation are assisting with this wildfire. Heavy equipment is building a fire guard around both wildfires and firefighters continue to secure the guard by extinguishing the wildfire’s perimeter. Dozer guard construction is progressing and nearly complete. Increased fire behaviour will challenge suppression resources and is expected to increase over the weekend with hot dry conditions.

The fire north of the Sturgeon Lake fire, is estimated at 1,189 hectares and is being worked on by fire crews using helicopters with buckets. No growth was observed on Friday and a Quebec incident management team is now in place with an out of province 20 person sustained action crew.