Fire officials on Prince Edward Island are reminding people that conditions are still too dry for taking chances, after putting out three fires across the Island on Wednesday.
A thrown-away cigarette likely caused a blaze in the woods in the Beach Grove area of Charlottetown, said the city’s deputy fire chief, Kent Mitchell. About 1,000 square feet of wooded area burned before it was subdued.
“We want to encourage people to honour the fire ban… that the province issued two weeks ago. Please do not discard cigarettes unnecessarily in the woods,” he said.
“Please don’t drop your guard on that… It’ll likely take a few good rains to — I can’t speak for the forestry people, but a few good rains to have that dryness level come up where there’s some moisture in the ground.
“Right now it’s very flammable.”
Mitchell said the first report of smoke in the Beach Grove area of western Charlottetown, north of Capital Drive, came in at around 10:52 a.m. Wednesday.
“Firefighters discovered a fire in the woods and upgraded the call to where it was a fire that needed some resources to put it out,” he said.
“Just the distance and getting through the woods and all that type of thing — it poses a challenge.”
Four fire trucks were sent out as well as an off-road vehicle because the root of the fire was in a location that wasn’t very accessible, Mitchell said.
“If it’s in the woods… you’re not going to have fire lanes going right to the fire for you, so it’s going to be a real challenge and slower type of response.”
Mitchell said the day’s light winds were on their side, stopping the Beach Grove fire from spreading further.
That wasn’t the case in Wellington, in western P.E.I., where a farm field fire almost spread into a nearby wooded area before it was contained.
Desmond Arsenault is the spokesperson for the Wellington Fire Department.
He said they got a call around lunchtime about a car fire, “and of course anytime you get a call you never know what to expect… It was actually a piece of farm equipment that was on fire in the middle of a freshly cut straw field.”
The crew that had responded immediately called for backup from Miscouche and Tyne Valley, he said.
“The fire was running now, not just from the machine that was on fire, but into the freshly cut grain and straw that was on the ground — and it was spreading very fast.”
Arsenault said the fire was not close to the nearby forest at first.
“When we got there, we saw the flames in the middle of the field, so we quickly started to attack that, but as the wind picked up and the fire grew in intensity, it started spreading very fast,” he said.
“In the end, just before we got it, I’m telling you it was less than two feet away from the treeline.”
He said the flames were a challenge to put out, and not only because of the wind.
“The fire is moving and then our hoses [have] an inch and a half of water going through them, and when they’re loaded with water, they’re extremely heavy,” he said.
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“You can’t just move them quickly from one area to another, so sometimes you have to drag them with trucks… You can’t tend to respond as quick as you would like to.”
But in the end, Arsenault said it didn’t take long to douse the flames.
“Miscouche and Tyne Valley… were here very quickly. It certainly helped, and shortly after we had some local farmers come out,” he said.
“That helped with some water and machines that disked the ground to help, you know, bury some of the straw that was left covered in the ground, so that was very helpful as well.”
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The Wellington fire, caused by a baler that was only three years old, left 20 acres burned.
The third fire was near Cavendish Farms in the New Annan area, around mid-afternoon Wednesday.
Video shared on social media showed thick smoke rising from another grain field.
This fire too was reported to have been extinguished before it could spread very far.
No injuries were reported from any of the fires.
