State of emergency in the county of Sturgeon due to an uncontrolled fire

On Sunday, Sturgeon County, north of Edmonton, said the state of local emergency due to an uncontrolled forest fire.

Fire, which is near the municipality of Redwaterhad already burned 388 hectares on Sunday afternoon, nearly 300 hectares more than the same morning.

We simply try to ensure the safety of residents and protect the propertiesunderlined the mayor of the county of Sturgeon, Alanna Hnatiw, on the CBC show Daybreak Alberta.

According to the most recent information provided by the county, the fire had not yet crossed the Saskatchewan Nord river, which crosses the county.

A house was destroyed, that of Shantelle Williams and her family.

We will have to start from scratch. We lost our house, our calf farming stable, our shop, everything.

The breeder underlines that her family is preparing each year in anticipation of forest fires, among others using ponds-reservoirs available to counter the land drought.

However, this time, they only had 13 minutes to evacuate.

It went at full speed. We didn’t have time to take anything in the house. We were lucky to get out of it with just the clothes we had on our backsshe said.

She adds that if some of her animals have been saved, several others have perished, like her chickens and her laying hens.

Redwaterwhich has just over 2100 inhabitants, has been placed under evacuation alert.

Residents must therefore be ready to evacuate if necessary and the authorities ask the population not to approach the provincial leisure area of ​​the municipality, to allow teams on site to do their job.

In addition, local roads remain closed, except for local traffic.

The fire near Redwater is found in an area whose command post is managed by firefighters from the municipality, rather than by the province.

Alberta still undertakes to offer assistance to help municipal teams extinguish the flames.

At present, six other fires are in areas that fall under the competence of municipalities.

One of them, located in the Lac La Biche forest district and near the border with Saskatchewan, burned 500 hectares on Sunday.

Another, in the county of Grande Prairie, forced the evacuation of a portion of the county to the south.

16 active lights, including 3 not controlled

In addition to these seven fires, 16 other active fires are identified through the province, three of which are considered to be uncontrolled.

One of the fires is in the forest district of Peace Rivernear Hutton Creek.

According to the website ofAlberta Wildfirethe fire teams began a burning directed at this place on Friday afternoon, before a unexpected wind does not complicate the situation and allows the fire to get out of its containment area.

The fire had burned 1200 hectares to date on Sunday afternoon. The authorities claim, however, that it does not constitute a risk for the surrounding communities and that means of suppression of fire have been deployed.

With information from Sam Brooks and the program Daybreak Alberta de CBC