Wildfire risk high in Manitoba with no rain in forecast

With a dry spring, the risk of wildfires sparking across Manitoba is high according to Natural Resources Canada.

As of Monday, the fire risk covers most of southern Manitoba, stretching from Saskatchewan all the way into Lake of the Woods.

Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler, minister responsible for emergency measures, said people need to take steps to protect their property.

“I suspect if we had rain right now we’d have very little runoff because the ground would just soak it up. I think we should be very concerned about it,” he said.

“We would encourage people to mow their lawns, get rid of any disburse around dead shrubs that kind of stuff that could be incendiary.”

“Go out and have a look around your yard and see what’s really combustible and deal with that.”

READ MORE: Southern Manitoba reeve loses home to brush fire

Schuler said everyone should be prepared for a fire.

“You should always have a box of your most important items, your family photos, your videos of your children, the things that you deem the most important,” he said.

Over the weekend five brush fires broke out across Winnipeg.

Tom Wallace, Deputy Chief of Support Service with the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said people need to be careful.

“Our position right now is any burning right now outside of BBQs or natural gas appliances is irresponsible,” he said.

Wallace said the fires like the one at the Transcona Bio Reserve and near Wilkes depleted more than half of the fire engines in the city each.

“Like I said that’s 15 pieces of apparatus out of 29 fire engines we have in the city. If we have another working fire like we did last night at the same time as the Transcona incident, it’s significant, it’s a significant drain on our resources and because these incidents are so dynamic it’s challenging.”

Wallace said fire officials have noticed a trend.

“So we did see a pattern — a fire that started in St. Boniface in the area of Fort Gibraltar, followed shortly thereafter with a fire at The Forks, a fire at the Kenaston underpass, a fire at Shaftesbury on Wilkes and then a fire further down Wilkes at Elmhurst and Liberty. It does seem to fit a pattern in so far that there was a train that came through the area,” he said. “We do have meetings with CN later this week.”

READ MORE: Winnipeg fire crews battle multiple blazes, on high alert for more

Outside city limits, fire fighters have also been busy fighting fires. Executive Director of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities Joe Masi said rural fire departments can often call on other municipalities for help with a big fire.

“Many municipalities have what they call mutual aid with other municipalities and they get together and respond to fires depending how large they are. If they’re smaller they have the capacity to respond on their own. ultimately if it’s something very major the provincial government comes in and helps and that’s the nature of emergency preparedness,” Masi said.

There are also burning restrictions across southern Manitoba.