Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

speakup

FREDERICTON - Only days after water receded from the Flood of the Century, a forest fire roared through the Oromocto area on Tuesday, threatening to engulf homes and stalling traffic for four hours on the Trans-Canada Highway.

1 of 2

Firefighters from the Department of Natural Resources make their way from an approaching grass fire, which suddenly switched direction. Firefighters from Oromocto, Natural Resources and the surrounding area’s fire departments were busy fighting a forest fire in Fredericton, in the Lincoln Road Area, Tuesday. The smoke from the fire shut down the Trans-Canada Highway.

GLEANER/STEPHEN MACGILLIVRAY PHO

FOREST FIRE: irefighters from Oromocto, Department of Natural Resources and the surrounding areas fire departments were busy fighting a forest fire in the Lincoln Road Area which the smoke from the fire shut down the Trans Canada Highway. Here Firefights on the ground look up as a water bomber passes overhead.

Fifty firefighters from Oromocto and the Department of Natural Resources battled the blaze, which started as a mid-afternoon brushfire and rapidly escalated out of control. Six water bombers - customized retired warplanes - were called in to drop foam and retardant on the flames, at times only metres behind residences on Route 655 in Waasis. The fire started in a subdivision in North Lincoln called Richmond Estates, charring the ground directly across the street from houses that were only recently constructed.

"The conditions were fairly extreme,'' said Brent Liston, the first firefighter from the Department of Natural Resources who arrived on the scene. "The trees were torching and there was a lot of smoke.

"I called in air support."

Pushed by 50-kilometer-an-hour winds, the fire began to hopscotch around and eventually cut a swath through 15 hectares of forest. It crossed into the centre median of the Trans-Canada Highway just outside Oromocto, then jumped across to the edge of the other side of the road.

Allen Grant, a forest ranger wearing a backpack, was credited with single-handedly keeping the fire from advancing into a more densely populated area. Grant leaped out of his truck and fought the blaze back until more help arrived.

"The wind was picking it up,'' Grant said. "(If it had) gotten across to the other side of the road, it would have been gone."

The RCMP closed all but one lane on the four-lane highway, slowing traffic to a crawl. Cars were backed up several kilometres in each direction, with 18-wheelers parked beside the road.

In about four hours, the fire was brought under control. No homes had to be evacuated.

"That was our concern the whole afternoon,'' Liston said. "We were prepared for it."

A communications officer for the town of Oromocto, Cindy Abbott said the outcome could not have been better.

"Everyone worked together very well, but with as high as the winds were, there was a bit of luck involved, too,'' Abbott said as an acrid aroma hung in the air. Only a short distance away, gusty winds blew puffs of smoke up from beneath burned soil.

With the blaze contained, the men and women battling the fire took a short dinner break a few feet from where one of their red trucks was parked, a sign reading "Prevent Forest Fires" painted on one side. Water that had been employed as a weapon against the fire was pooling in ditches beside the road, and the moon was beginning to rise in a powder-blue sky.

Gail Duncan, a public information officer with the Department of Natural Resources, said the risk for fire was at the highest level when it was ignited. The risk will continue to be high today, thanks to dry ground and windy weather.

"We'll be monitoring this for a few days for sure," she said. "It's very tricky. You can't assume it's out. People will be doing walk-through here for as long as it takes."

Marty Klinkenberg is a contributing editor of the Telegraph-Journal. He can be reached at martyklinkenberg@hotmail.com.