With hot dry weather conditions expected this weekend, there will not be a lot of relief for wildfires in the province.

Vice President of Operations for the Public Safety Agency, Steve Roberts, says there may be relief in the far north with temperatures expected to come down, but storms elsewhere could bring more lightning strikes.  Roberts says fire risk remains high to extreme across the province, based on that and the fire load, Roberts states the fire ban will remain in effect and will be reviewed in a couple of days.  With fire activity in the province and in neighbouring provinces, smoke and haze is expected to stick around due to prevailing winds.

As of Thursday morning there were nine new active fires compared to the day before.  Roberts says they were able to contain a number of fires during that time.

“There was fire growth on a number of fires, but some of them were contained and did not grow because of our efforts, we have a mixed bag of types of behaviours and changes to those fire types.”

129 Fires remain active, year to date there have been 367 wildfires, which is around 150 more than the five year average.

Roberts says a fire of concern, around 300 hectares in size was of concern, moved close to the McClean Lake Uranium Mine site.  He says currently that site is secure but it is a fire of interest.  Fires of concern that are still in proximity to Saskatchewan communities include:

-Lock Fire in the vicinity of Dillon, St. Georges Hill, Michelle Village (Current size 23,300 hectares)
-GMB01 fire near Grandmother’s Bay (estimated size 1,510 hectares)
-Mule fire near Stanley Mission (estimated size 380 hectares)
-Stallard fire in the vicinity of Stony Rapids and Black Lake (estimates size 2,260 hectares)
-Klyne fire in the vicinity of South End (500 hectares)

There are 58 people who needed to be evacuated being housed in North Battleford.

For more visit:
https://www.saskpublicsafety.ca/emergencies-and-response/active-emergencies