MNR teaches a lesson in wildfire prevention

Ken Johnston

While it is not fire season, wildfires were definitely a hot topic of discussion at a public meeting hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Dawson Township last Thursday.
Fire Management Technician Bill Payne lead the 15 people present through a presentation on wildfires both recent and of historic proportions.
Payne said that the type of fuel most common in Dawson Township is grass. “It is very volatile in the spring and that can mean valuables can be threatened.” When speaking of valuables, he was referring to structures that could be lost if a wildfire gets out of hand. In 1998 a fire in Dawson consumed some 700 hectares of land but fortunately no valuables were lost. “Grass fires move very fast, often faster than people can run.”
Dawson’s fire department is responsible for a vast area north of Rainy River over to Pinewood with only about 20% of the land falling under MNR’s fire protection authority as crown land. When Dawson can’t handle the situation they have to call on MNR to bring in water bombers and possibly personnel to fight the fire. That gets costly for the township. Reeve John Amundsen said, “We are still paying a $14,000 bill from two years ago,” for a fire that happened and MNR had to be called to.
Payne said the main goal of the Thursday meeting was to raise awareness of the fire problem here and to reduce and/or eliminate numbers and impacts resulting from the lighting of roadside fires.
Payne explained how to safely burn a field. He recommended back burning into the wind to reduce the chance of the fire getting away. Many people feel they should burn with the wind behind the fire, but that often leads to fires getting out of control. “Fire has no rules, it does what it wants to and it will get away.”
Payne also recommended that people with valuables in an area where a wildfire could breakout should create fuel breaks around their structures, trim tree branches 6-10 feet up from the ground, eliminate ground litter and other potential fuels, have the building’s foundation skirted in rather than open if on raised timbers. He also recommended having fire equipment on hand.
There have been 18 fires in Dawson over a 15 year span. 45% of them have been well over 40 ha in size and most were in the spring when fuels are at their driest.
The Great Fire of 1910 consumed 125,000 ha and 42 people perished. Most of the area was a barren wasteland with Baudette being completely burned down.
The 1911 Porcupine fire consumed 200,000 ha and Timmins, Porcupine and South Junction were all burned to the ground.
Payne encourages the public to burn safely and if they are not sure what to do about making their property safer to call their local fire department to do an inspection.