As wildfire conditions remain “extreme” in northern Alberta, residents are being urged to be extra cautious and follow a fire ban.
“The forests, the grasses are so dry right now,” said Trevor Grant, fire chief of the northern Alberta county of Grande Prairie, in an interview with CTV News Channel on Monday. “We’re stressing people use extreme caution. We’re currently in a fire ban and if people are out recreating, just be very, very careful. We prefer if you wouldn’t have a fire.”
The area has had 3.6 millimetres of precipitation so far in May, while only 3.4 mm precipitation occurred in all of April, he said.
At the time of the interview, Grant said an evacuation order remains on 17 homes and officials are assessing the situation Monday morning.
“We’re going to be continuously evaluating that,” he said. “Obviously, our goal is to get people home as soon as possible.”
Despite the risk, he said smoke conditions have “greatly improved” over the last two days.
Crews were able to do a lot of work creating a perimeter around the fire.
“Yesterday the winds were back, the conditions did clear up and we were able to get aircraft in the air and continue to work with helicopters bucketing.”
The fire in the Grande Prairie hamlet of Teepee Creek spurred two evacuation orders over the weekend. The County of Grande Prairie remains in a local state of emergency.
“That fire is pretty close to containment,” Melissa Story from Alberta Wildfire told CTV News Edmonton on Sunday. “We are expecting to see some more showers and subdued conditions over the next couple of days, so hopefully we can make some good progress on it in the coming days.”
Smoky conditions have led to air quality advisories across Western Canada, and as the smoke drifts, advisories may be issued further east. Smoke is expected to hit parts of Ontario on Tuesday.
Watch the full interview above for more information, including details on the latest conditions.
With files from CTV News’ Dorcas Marfo, CTVNewsEdmonton.ca’s Brittany Ekelund and CTVNewsCalgary.ca’s Stephen Hunt