Latest news with #LesserSlaveRegionalFireService
Calgary Herald
6 days ago
- Climate
- Calgary Herald
'Puts a bit of fear in people': Town of Slave Lake on evacuation alert as residents remember devastating 2011 wildfire
Article content 'The provincial government and the municipal fire department have really worked to improve response and preparedness,' Pavek said, citing training, equipment and the province's new wildland urban interface teams to train on wildfires and structure protection and response. Article content In Slave Lake, not unlike the RM of Wood Buffalo and Parkland County, moving a fire chief into an administration role has brought helpful practical experience to management. Article content Pavek brings institutional memory as the former long-time fire chief for the Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service, with more than a decade in the 6,500-resident community on the easternmost shore of Lesser Slave Lake, which also serves an additional 3,500 souls in the surrounding 10,000 square kilometres. Article content From a full-time fire chief and a full-time deputy chief, the Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service has grown to staff an administrator, a maintenance officer and four full-time firefighters, in addition to a 95-volunteer force paid on call. Article content Additionally, one of the province's eight firefighting teams is based in Slave Lake. Article content There are two Type 2 structure protection trailers. Article content A rare Type 1 is one of just an elite handful in the province. Article content Whereas the normal trailer has four or six pumps, and 50 or 60 sprinklers, the Type 1 has 22 pumps, miles and miles of hose, and 250 sprinklers. Article content 'It's meant to do more without having to have a bunch of smaller resources on site,' he said. Article content The trailer was funded exclusively with about $500,000 in local capital — and local elbow grease. Article content Invisible but powerful, the town's digital alert footprint has expanded greatly since 2011. Article content In addition to the Alberta Emergency Alert System, there are news alerts on social media. Article content Subscriptions to the Voyent app to get emergency notices out to registered smart phone users burgeoned in 2023 after looming emergencies on the old Smith highway. Article content Article content Doing unto others Article content At the Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service, there's institutional memory of the many hands that helped staunch the lit torch of 2011. Article content 'A lot of people came to our community to help. So we've taken great pride and being able to pay that back whenever we could,' said Pavek, who has personally been deployed numerous times across Alberta and B.C. since he started with Slave Lake in 2014. Article content So far in 2025, Slave Lake crews have fought fires in Boyle, Redwater and Red Earth. Article content Around the province, there are a few 'wildfires of note' — including eight within the Red Earth East complex, centred in the northeastern portion of the Slave Lake Forest Area, east of Highway 88. Article content Chipewyan Lake remains under evacuation order a fire, listed as out of control at 135,970 hectares. The wildfire threat to the community of Chipewyan Lake remains 'minimal' as firefighters in a helicopter continue to monitor the wildfire and have reported very little fire activity over the past several days.
Global News
6 days ago
- Climate
- Global News
After 2011 wildfire, Slave Lake better prepared amid current evacuation alert
A northern Alberta community that's no stranger to the devastation of a wildfire is on standby to flee if needed. After lightning from a thunderstorm sparked a fire on Sunday in the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River, an evacuation alert was issued both for the rural area surrounding the blaze, as well as for the town of Slave Lake — which was razed by one of Alberta's costliest wildfires in 2011. At the time, nearly 400 homes and businesses, including an apartment complex and town hall, were reduced to ash and rubble when fierce winds whipped flames through the town north of Edmonton with little warning. Damages were pegged at $700 million — one of the country's costliest disasters until the Fort McMurray wildfire happened out four years later. The fire burning now is about 20 kilometres northeast of Slave Lake and 12 kilometres to the east of Marten Beach. Story continues below advertisement View image in full screen The SWF149 wildfire near Slave Lake, Alta., broke out on Sunday, July 20, 2025. Alberta Wildfire 'It grew to about 40 hectares within two hours, which is pretty significant growth for a fire in under two hours,' said Ryan Coutts, deputy fire chief with the Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service. 'It's just under 20 kilometres from Slave Lake right now, and then some other subdivisions that we're watching, just over 10 kilometres to some of those subdivisions north of Slave Lake.' An Alberta Emergency Alert is in effect for the town of Slave Lake, including properties along Devonshire Road North and everyone in the MD of Lesser Slave River located in the Hamlet of Marten Beach, Summerwood, Township Road 740 and Gillwood Golf Course. Everyone in the town and on properties along Devonshire Road North must be prepared to evacuate within eight hours' notice. Everyone close to the fire in the MD of Lesser Slave River needs to be ready to flee within four hours. Story continues below advertisement 2:06 Slave Lake fire: 5 years later 'Generally we set trigger points for what we are seeing that fire do and then how much time we need or we think we need to get everyone out safely. You know, lessons learned from 2011 to try and not have that mass chaos and get people out safely with not as much panic as possible, I guess,' Coutts said. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy The town aims to give residents as much advance notice as possible so they can be prepared. 'Yes, it is a stressful situation. Yes, people are gonna be nervous and anxious, but the point of trying to give that information early is so that people can go and get gas and can pack some things up and can have the time to do that and kind of process rather than doing it at the last second,' Coutts said. 2:01 Looking ahead to Alberta's wildfire season Cooler temperatures and rain on Monday have helped reduce the fire activity, but that relief is expected to be temporary with return of hot and dry conditions later this week. Story continues below advertisement The out-of-control wildfire and related evacuation alerts can be triggering to resident who experienced the devastating 2011 fire – however the opposite is also true. Some Slave Lake residents say they are almost desensitized, and lack a sense of urgency because there's so many emergency alerts nowadays. 'We get so many of them that you start to kind of not pay a whole lot of attention to them,' said Laura Somerville, adding they are prepared in the event they do have to flee on short notice. ' You have your little box ready to go with all your important information in it and so on.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: " You have your little box ready to go with all your important information in it and so on." Residents have seen an increase in water bomber activity in the area in the past 24 hours with crews scooping up water from Lesser Slave Lake. Somerville's husband works in forestry. She said they have an inside scoop on whether a fire like the one that started on Sunday is something to be worried about or not. 'He wasn't super worried about it,' Somerville said. 'We've got really good firefighting crews and everybody was on it like immediately, so you become a little less worried for that reason I think because we know there's good people taking care of us.' Coutts said the emergency alert system isn't perfect and the criteria for when alerts are sent, and who gets them, could be refined so they aren't ignored. Story continues below advertisement The 2011 blaze was, at the time, was one of the worst in Canadian history and prompted a visit from the newlyweds William, Prince of Wales and his wife Catherine. View image in full screen The Duke And Duchess of Cambridge inspect a fire damaged car as they walk through Slave Lake, Alta., on July 6, 2011. Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images In the nearly 15 years since the Slave Lake wildfire, the community has made changes from lessons observed at home and elsewhere. One such change: modifying fire trucks so they can be more responsive to wildfires, not just structure fires in town. 'The ladder truck, for example, didn't have any forestry hose on it because generally a ladder truck is not used to fight forest fires. We've seen that where we had to use absolutely everything that we had,' Coutts said. 'So little tweaks like that to equipment, trucks and equipment being specifically bought with some of those applications in mind.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "So little tweaks like that to equipment, trucks and equipment being specifically bought with some of those applications in mind." Story continues below advertisement There's also more joint training. 'We have really good training for wildland firefighters, we have good training for structural firefighters but in the last 10 years, how do we bring those together so that people can be safe in these environments where wildland fires are coming into communities?' Coutts said strong mutual aid agreements with surrounding communities and Alberta Wildfire crews is also key. 'We can pull resources from probably five counties pretty easily with just phone calls,' he said, adding firefighters from across Alberta pitch in to help when needed. 'We had a crew from 40 Mile County, which is down by Lethbridge, up here this year for a wildfire,' he said. 'It's awesome that everyone's willing to help, especially from southern Alberta when maybe they're wet and we're dry up here.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's awesome that everyone's willing to help, especially from southern Alberta when maybe they're wet and we're dry up here." Story continues below advertisement The fire risk on Monday was moderate, down from very high on Sunday when conditions were hot and dry. As of Monday afternoon, the wildfire near Slave Lake had only grown about four hectares overnight. Firefighters in helicopters and airtankers responded, Alberta Wildifre said, explaining heavy equipment built containment line around the fire and night vision-equipped helicopters and firefighters worked overnight. Rain reduced fire activity on Monday as additional firefighters and heavy equipment were enroute to help. So far in 2025, Alberta Wildfire said there have been 147 wildfires reported in the Slave Lake Forest Area, burning a total of 378,250 hectares. 1:59 Jasper mayor stands by report critical of province's wildfire response: 'Not a political statement' — with files from Lisa MacGregor, Global News
Edmonton Journal
6 days ago
- Climate
- Edmonton Journal
'Puts a bit of fear in people': Town of Slave Lake on evacuation alert as residents remember devastating 2011 wildfire
Article content 'The provincial government and the municipal fire department have really worked to improve response and preparedness,' Pavek said, citing training, equipment and the province's new wildland urban interface teams to train on wildfires and structure protection and response. Article content In Slave Lake, not unlike the RM of Wood Buffalo and Parkland County, moving a fire chief into an administration role has brought helpful practical experience to management. Article content Pavek brings institutional memory as the former long-time fire chief for the Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service, with more than a decade in the 6,500-resident community on the easternmost shore of Lesser Slave Lake, which also serves an additional 3,500 souls in the surrounding 10,000 square kilometres. Article content From a full-time fire chief and a full-time deputy chief, the Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service has grown to staff an administrator, a maintenance officer and four full-time firefighters, in addition to a 95-volunteer force paid on call. Article content Article content Additionally, one of the province's eight firefighting teams is based in Slave Lake. Article content There are two Type 2 structure protection trailers. Article content A rare Type 1 is one of just an elite handful in the province. Article content Whereas the normal trailer has four or six pumps, and 50 or 60 sprinklers, the Type 1 has 22 pumps, miles and miles of hose, and 250 sprinklers. Article content 'It's meant to do more without having to have a bunch of smaller resources on site,' he said. Article content The trailer was funded exclusively with about $500,000 in local capital — and local elbow grease. Article content Invisible but powerful, the town's digital alert footprint has expanded greatly since 2011. Article content In addition to the Alberta Emergency Alert System, there are news alerts on social media. Article content Subscriptions to the Voyent app to get emergency notices out to registered smart phone users burgeoned in 2023 after looming emergencies on the old Smith highway. Article content Article content Doing unto others Article content At the Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service, there's institutional memory of the many hands that helped staunch the lit torch of 2011. Article content 'A lot of people came to our community to help. So we've taken great pride and being able to pay that back whenever we could,' said Pavek, who has personally been deployed numerous times across Alberta and B.C. since he started with Slave Lake in 2014. Article content So far in 2025, Slave Lake crews have fought fires in Boyle, Redwater and Red Earth. Article content Around the province, there are a few 'wildfires of note' — including eight within the Red Earth East complex, centred in the northeastern portion of the Slave Lake Forest Area, east of Highway 88. Article content Chipewyan Lake remains under evacuation order a fire, listed as out of control at 135,970 hectares. The wildfire threat to the community of Chipewyan Lake remains 'minimal' as firefighters in a helicopter continue to monitor the wildfire and have reported very little fire activity over the past several days.
