Wildfire in Sturgeon County grows as evacuation order expanded

A Sturgeon County wildfire doubled in size overnight to a total of approximately 3,000 hectares by Thursday afternoon.

“The threat of further fire spread continues, with high wind in the forecast into tomorrow. The evacuation alert area remains unchanged and applies to everyone located east of Range Road 223 to the North Saskatchewan River and between Township Road 580 south to Township Road 570, including the town of Redwater,” said a news release from Sturgeon County.

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An immediate evacuation order was expanded late Wednesday and the hours of operation for the reception centre in Morinville were extended to 24-7.

All evacuees were told to report in person to the reception centre at the Morinville Leisure Centre, and a call centre line was established for evacuees at 587-200-3068.

In a Wednesday news conference, Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw said hints of spring green-up can give a false sense of security.

“The underbrush and the carry-over on pastures and the fire load are still very, very dry,” Hnatiw said, advising people to take precautions like picking up debris, not burning, and not driving equipment through even short grass.

“It takes just a spark to start something,” she said, thanking the chief and front line responders, including regional emergency management partners from the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.

Havoc and chaos

In Redwater, where extreme fire behaviour and treetop-hopping blazes led to wider evacuations of people and livestock around the Redwater Provincial Recreation Area 60 km northeast of Edmonton on Wednesday, rumours were swirling.

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Redwater Mayor Dave McRae issued a statement Thursday to assure anxious residents.

“We understand that residents are feeling anxious and looking for information. We want to assure you that Redwater is currently under an evacuation alert, not an evacuation order, and we continue to monitor the situation closely,” McRae said, citing the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, Sturgeon County, and the Town of Redwater as the best sources for information.

“Please don’t attempt to get close to the action just to report or post updates. It’s unsafe, and it can interfere with co-ordinated emergency efforts,” McRae said.

“Continue to reach out if you have questions — we are here, and we are listening. We are in regular contact with our regional emergency management partners under the Sturgeon Regional Emergency Management Partnership, who are providing critical support, co-ordination, and updates. Their expertise and collaboration are key to ensuring that, if the situation shifts, we are ready to act quickly and responsibly.”

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‘Busiest season’

The Maskwacis Fire Department may get four or five calls about grass fires daily, said Fire Chief Barry Johnson.

“Grass fire season is our busiest season of the year,” he said.

A local state of emergency two weeks ago lasted two days and saw two houses burn.

“Samson Cree Nation has lost one occupied home and one abandoned home,” Johnson said.

“I counted 86 houses in Samson and Ermineskin that were in the line of fire. We were able to evacuate all the homes in the area, and we did set up a reception centre for them.”

In addition to fire departments from nearby First Nations, firefighters from Wetaskiwin and Ponoka responded with mutual aid, he said.

The cause of that fire has yet to be determined, Johnson said.

The truth about May

Alberta has a lone, unfortunate distinction as the only province where May is the worst month for wildfires.

With trees sucking up every available bit of moisture for the spring “green up” window in places like Redwater and Maskwacis, an estimated 50 per cent of the province’s wildfires start in May, said Mike Flannigan, a former instructor at the University of Alberta, and current BC Innovation Research Chair in predictive services, emergency management and fire science at Thompson Rivers University in B.C.

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“Most places it’s July, some places like B.C. it’s August, a few places it’s June, but nowhere else has May, and that’s because of the weather you see in Alberta, the windy conditions that we’ve been experiencing the last little while,” Flannigan said.

It’s still too early for the summer lightning that zaps fires into existence in July and August, which means the majority of fires started in May are man-made.

“There’s a lot of activity on the landscape in Alberta, whether it’s industrial, oil, gas, forestry or recreation activities,” he said,

“The big picture in Alberta, about 50 per cent of the fires are started by people or their activities, and 50 per cent by lightning (in July and August). Of the people-caused fires, there’s a wide range of activities or sources — power lines, railways, campfires, quads, agricultural burning, trash burning. There’s a long list of things.”

Internal fire on a quad is believed to have started the Redwater Provincial Recreational Area fire that eventually caused evacuation alerts this week, and burned down a house and barn and did other damage at Redwater River Ranch.

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Additionally, Alberta has a new and unpleasant distinction, with “zombie” fires overwintering.

In the High Level–Rainbow Lake area, there’s a fire that’s overwintered twice, nurtured by a multi-year drought, with a large perimeter approaching the size of Prince Edward Island, burning underground while feeding on peat moss and sphagnum moss as deep as a metre down and smouldering very slowly and stubbornly through winter, under the snow, simmering along the rootlines, difficult to find and fight.

“The standard overwintering is below ground. It’s very challenging fire management,” Flannigan said.

So far, the numbers are running some 25 per cent below the worst year for number of wildfires — the record-breaking 2023, when persistent hot dry weather across much of the nation led to record-breaking fire years for Nova Scotia, Quebec, Northwest Territories, B.C., and Alberta.

“It was record-smashing across Canada, where that’s the most area burned they’ve had in their observational period. It was crazy,” he said.

jcarmichael@postmedia.com

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