The Rural Municipality of Hanover is lifting its fire ban.
The ban was implemented last week Thursday after a string of very hot and windy days. The municipality has indicated that it will be lifted today at noon.
"Things have improved greatly in the past week," says Hanover Fire Chief Paul Wiebe. "We've received quite a fair bit of rain and conditions are where we can now comfortably lift the fire ban."
Wiebe stresses that under Hanover's Fire Prevention Bylaw, fires are still prohibited in urban communities and on rural residential properties. Enclosed backyard fire pits and barbeques are allowed. Small backyard fires must be in approved fire pits only and must be attended to and fully extinguished before leaving. Wiebe adds their bylaw prohibits fires when wind speeds are 32 kilometres per hour or greater.
According to Wiebe, there has been good compliance from residents during this last week's fire ban. Wiebe says he receives a lot of phone calls from people asking what is and is not allowed.
"So that's good," he says. "We're happy that people check first."
In fact, Wiebe says whether or not there is a fire ban in effect, compliance has always been great in Hanover.
He refers to it as a common sense Fire Prevention Bylaw in the municipality, noting that if they allow controlled burns, it takes care of a lot of the stored fuel in Hanover.
"If we go year after year with total fire bans, we end up in the situation like we had 12 years ago where we had a lot of tinder boxes ready to go and it did," he recalls. "We were very busy for a long time."
Meanwhile, Wiebe says this has been one of their busiest fire seasons on record, but not only because of grass and brush fires. He notes it has also been a very busy time for structure fires, many of which have been unrelated to grass fires.
"So, we've had a busy couple of weeks and then with the conditions and with the deployment of some of our members to our neighbouring municipalities, we decided to put the ban in," he explains. "We knew it would be for a short time."
Meanwhile, the RM of De Salaberry has also now lifted its Level 2 fire ban for all areas of the municipality.