Don’t get too excited yet, but for the moment, it looks like the ALIR fire could indeed now be dead.
The fire, which started on the west shore of Amisk Lake back in July, is now listed as “finalized” by the Saskatchwan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) as of Oct. 18. The fire was moved from “protecting assets” to “ongoing assessment” earlier this month, before finally being moved again to “finalized’ Oct. 14. No new hotspots have been reported with the fires on the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) since Oct. 11.
This is now the second time the ALIR fire has been marked as inactive - SPSA had previously considered the ALIR fire “out” earlier this month, before a series of new hotspots around the fire's known perimeter were found in the past few weeks.
Since the blaze began in July, it has burned almost 32,000 hectares of forest west of Amisk Lake, around the Sturgeon Weir River and Neagle Lake.
Elsewhere in Saskatchewan, 19 fires are still active in the province as of Oct. 19, but none are active in the Denare Beach fire protection area. The nearest active fire to Flin Flon, Creighton and Denare Beach is the Noman fire, about 90 kilometres away from Creighton along the Mossy River. That fire is about 1,400 hectares in size - the SPSA considers that fire to be “ongoing assessment”.
Saskatchewan’s biggest fire, the Bell fire near Hudson Bay, is marked now as “contained” by the SPSA. That fire affected about 92,000 hectares of land and was found in the same area as several other fires, most of which either started in July or last month. Several hotspots have been reported in the area in recent weeks, including as recently as Oct. 16, but none in the past few days.
People evacuated from the nearby communities of Red Earth Cree Nation and Shoal Lake Cree Nation still are not home - evacuations began earlier this month, when hotspots showed the fires were heading north towards the communities.
Saskatchewan has seen 624 fires started since the start of the summer. Fire danger for the area near Flin Flon is listed as “low” or “moderate” for Sask areas for the coming days.
Manitoba
Manitoba has 21 fires currently burning, but appears to be letting nature do the work in putting most of them out. None of the fires are listed as “out of control” by Manitoba Conservation and Climate, with most now being considered “monitored” or “under control”.
That includes the WE095 fire near Trout/Embury Lake, the WE038 fire near Kississing and Kisseynew Lake and several others burning in the region, all marked as “under control”.
A total of 28 firefighters, one helicopter and one “other aircraft” are being used to fight fires in western Manitoba, which covers the Flin Flon area. According to Manitoba Conservation and Climate, another 26 firefighters (with no other major equipment listed) are now in use in the Eastern region as of Oct. 19.
Manitoba has reported 460 fires this year.
