The County of Grande Prairie lifted the five-day mandatory evacuation order for residents in Kleskun Creek on the afternoon of May 15th and in response, Fire Chief Trevor Grant shared some insights on how to stay safe when returning home in a wildfire-affected area.
According to Chief Grant, both County and Alberta Wildfire crews will continue operating in the area during the coming days, and as a result, returning residents are asked to be mindful of their presence.
“The county resources are probably going to diminish over the coming days, but Alberta Wildfire will be there for probably a few weeks, monitoring, hot-spotting,” he says.
Additionally, the County Fire Chief is asking residents to stay aware of the various hazards that come with returning to an active wildfire area.
“When people get home we want them to be very aware of the conditions around their properties, and don’t be going into the fire area,” he says. “We have some really kind of dangerous situations that are in there- trees that may have burned through the roots and might fall down during wind gusts, or the ash pits which we talked a lot about after the Dunes West wildfire.”
Chief Grant emphasizes the importance of staying away from the fire area as ash pits remain a very real threat in the fire zone. Grant says as fire burns into an area, underground pits can form which can be invisible to the unaware, leading to the risk of falling into an ash pit which can result in serious injury.
“Be mindful of the crews that are still working, and watch out for those hazardous situations around trees and assets,” he says.
Residents returning home remain under a one-hour evacuation alert, and are asked to remain aware that an order could be implemented on short notice, should the wildfire risk change.
