A wildfire burning northeast of Suncor’s Firebag oilsands site is growing but not significantly closer to the infrastructure, according to Alberta Wildfire.
MWF047 was about 13,000 hectares big as of Monday morning.
Eight kilometres northeast of the Suncor site, and 70 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray, it is the largest and only out-of-control blaze in a group of fires the province is responding to jointly.
More than 200 people are working in the area. Twenty helicopters are assigned there, as well as three dozen heavy equipment teams.
On Monday, crews will be maintaining and building containment lines on the west and south sides of MWF047, where wildfire activity has been growing more aggressive.
Semo wildfire complex update
The other area of concern over the weekend was north of John D’Or Prairie, Garden River and Fox Lake in northern Alberta.
The largest of several fires in this area, together named the Semo complex, is HWF061, a 16,300-hectare blaze burning out of control 38 kilometres northeast of Jon D’Or.
According to Alberta Wildfire, additional resources have been requested and will arrive in the coming days to help the 113 firefighters and support staff already there.
On Sunday and Monday, helicopters bucketed the north side to help the effort to secure the west side of the blaze and heavy equipment operators were working to improve access from the southwest.
Ground firefighters will join the effort when safe zones are created, Alberta Wildfire says.
Temperatures ‘challenging’
In total, there are 63 wildfires burning in Alberta’s protected forests, 13 of which are out of control and 20 are being held.
All of the out-of-control fires are burning in the Fort McMurray and High Level forest areas.
The hotter weather is already beginning to lead to more intense fire activity, Alberta Wildfire said.
“Today is expected to be a challenging day for crews as temperatures are on the rise and hotter temperatures are expected over the next few days,” the agency said Monday morning about the firefight north of Fort McMurray.
Wildfire smoke is most severely decreasing air quality in the far northeast. Edmonton’s air quality rating Monday morning was five and forecasted to drop to four by Tuesday morning.