This past weekend, the Carman Dufferin Fire Department had its hands full.
“We had a grass fire call starting on Thursday, then we had another one on Saturday and then two on Sunday,” says Chief Chris Lemky of the department.
The grass fires all had a similar cause — the dry, windy, and hot conditions that came along with the first weekend of May.
“The first one on Thursday was somebody that had started something, and then the wind [picked] up and it got out of hand on them,” says Chief Lemky. “Saturday was much the same.”
The fire chief says the wind also caused the two instances on Sunday. Fires lit earlier in the week flared up in the wind, heat, and dry temperatures.
Fighting wind and flame
Chief Lemky says fighting the flames caused by the wind took some effort to contain.
“With the high, high winds and high temperatures, it was a little bit of a battle trying to get it to stop from spreading, but fortunately, we were able to get there in a good amount of time and stop it from spreading too far.”
The fire chief says that when the second call came in on Friday, the Carman Dufferin Fire Department was still working on the first fire, so it called for assistance from Elm Creek to send its tanker to help on the eventful day.
A notice to the public
As the gusty winds, high temperatures, and dry conditions continue, Chief Lemky advises the community not to burn.
“We are actively working on putting a burn ban in place here for the RM of Dufferin,” he says. “That will come into effect in the next couple of days.”
The fire chief also invites anyone who wants information on burning conditions to check by sending a message to the Carman Dufferin Fire Department’s Facebook page.
With files from Robyn Wiebe