There were moments of concern Monday, but for the most part things are calm after the large grass fire at Grasslands National Park over the weekend.
The fire burned over 20 kilometers and from 1 to 5 kilometers deep during windy conditions on Saturday.
"People are still very busy on the ground but much more sense of calm," said Parks Superintendent Katherine Patterson explains the next step. "We were kind of on high alert this afternoon because we had a lot of gusting winds and the same kinds of low humidity conditions that we had on Saturday afternoon, but so far so good."
They haven't seen any live flames since Sunday afternoon. Patterson described the next steps.
Interview with Katherine Patterson"Our main operations now are just giving each patrol group their own part of the perimeter to monitor but also do some preventative work on areas that might be likely to flare-up, check and see if fire got into any root systems or deep into any vegetation. We've got other crews that our working the perimeter of the boundary fence that keeps the bison in to see where that is burnt through so we can do some emergency repairs."
The staff at Grasslands was supported by an estimate of over 200 volunteers on Saturday. They are now being supported and spelled by other Parks Canada employees.
"We've got the top incident commanders (and) teams of three or more people have come from at least six different parks to help with some of the follow up, monitoring and assessment," Patterson noted.
There are over 20 additional staff in the region filling up all the local hotels and bed and breakfasts.
They also brought in a helicopter which will do a fly over with heat sensors to get an idea where the fire went, how it behaved and the status of the bison.
Sat, Apr 27, 2:03 PM
Agriculture, Transport
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