Early fire bans implemented in 4 Sask. communities

WATCH: As the weather continues to improve across the province, a handful of fire bans have already been put in place.

A handful of RMs in Saskatchewan have opted to impose fire bans this week.

The RMs of Meadow Lake, Eagle Creek, Rosthern, and Vanscoy all have bans in place, in addition to a fire advisory in the RM of Loon Lake.

Mike Given is the fire chief for Delisle District Fire & Rescue. He says the snow still present in many areas can be deceiving when it comes to fire risks.

“Snow on the ground is one thing, but when the grass is up above the snow, it’s still dry and it can still burn over top of the snow,” Given said.

He went on to say that while it doesn’t happen very often, the right conditions can certainly create grass fires.

“If you’ve got enough combustible material, it doesn’t really matter how wet the ground is. It’s the combustible material that’s above the ground that will combust and take off. And if you’ve got a good wind, you’ve got a good fire,” Given said.

Given also says while it may seem a little early for this issue, it’s actually only about a week ahead of when these restrictions are typically put in place.

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The RM of Vanscoy is one of the RMs that recently announced a fire ban.

“With the amount of dry material out there, there’s no regrowth happening yet. It’s just a decision we want to make. We would rather have some restrictions in place than have to deal with loss of life and huge loss of property,” Leonard Junop, reeve of the RM of Vanscoy, said.

Vanscoy opted to impose a fire ban following a grass fire in the community that took place earlier this week.

“We spent almost nine hours on the scene, and we’ve been back twice. So, given the fact that the snowmelt was very quick this year, and there’s a lot of dead grass there, I think it was a good time to put on the fire ban,” Given said.

The reeve says that, like many RMs, his community is served by a volunteer fire department. This is why following these bans is particularly important for residents.

“It’s a volunteer fire department; they have other lives too. And it’s sometimes hard to get enough members out when we need them in a hurry. They do the best they can. We’re all trying to do the best we can, and we just ask that the community does the same thing too,” Junop said.

While the fire ban is still in place, Given shares some fire safety advice for when the restriction is lifted.

“We have what’s called a ten-foot rule. You want to be at least ten feet from any of those types of combustibles if you’re going to have a fire pit to cook hot dogs with kids, that type of thing,” Given said.

Junop says he’s hopeful the conditions will improve soon, so residents may begin enjoying the warm weather.

“As soon as we can take it off, we will be taking that off. So, as we get some green girls coming and hopefully, we have the moisture there this year, and if we get some sunshine and stuff starts growing, we will take the fire ban off as soon as we can,” Junop said.