Lethbridge firefighters work to control grass fire that burned along the coulees west of Mountain View Cemetery Tuesday evening.--HERALD PHOTO IAN MARTENS
Melissa Villeneuve & Nick Kuhl
Lethbridge Herald
Lethbridge fire resources were all hands on deck to fight a grassfire in the Oldman River valley Tuesday night.
The fire broke out after 6 p.m. in the coulees near the Lethbridge Country Club and Mountainview Cemetery. It prompted the closure of Scenic Drive between 16th Avenue and 10th Avenue S., and a voluntary evacuation alert for residents in Scenic Heights.
“Life is our No. 1 priority, so we’re going to take precautions specifically to protect life,” said deputy fire chief Dana Terry.
Twenty firefighters and nine apparatus responded from all four stations. Maximum resources were deployed as the fire was quickly spreading and high winds hampered efforts to extinguish the flames.
“Last night, all of our firefighters were used here,” said Terry. “We actually had to call in firefighters who were off shift to assist with our own situations here in the city. We didn’t have extra people to send anywhere else.”
Access in the coulees is a challenge, as it’s difficult to navigate fire trucks down the hilly terrain.
“And then when you have firefighters running up and down the coulees as well trying to fight the fire, all of that zaps their energy. They tire out just like anyone else,” said Terry. “But they did a good job of quickly addressing the fire spread, hitting the high spots and then coming back and hitting hot spots later on.”
Terry said the fact the cemetary and the Country Club keep their properties “well watered” assisted the fire department in their efforts.
“It would help limit some of that spread,” said Terry. “But when it gets into the coulees, it’s not maintained. These are wild areas and because of the high winds we’ve had the last few days… it creates issues for us as well.”
Shortly after 9 p.m. the fire was under control. The City of Lethbridge wrote on Twitter that it was out around 10 p.m. Firefighters stayed throughout the night in case any hot spots flared up.
Lethbridge Fire Services co-ordinated efforts through the emergency co-ordination centre, which also assisted surrounding communities such as Moon River Estates and the Crowsnest Pass.
“As a community, last night was a frightening evening and a lot of issues that culminated at the same time,” said Lethbridge Fire Chief Richard Hildebrand. “We had power outages, we had this fire start, and as a result we had some voluntary evacuations to deal with. As well we had fires in the neighbouring communities and to the best of our knowledge we had evacuees coming from Moon River.”
It’s a stressful situation when a fire creeps close to people’s homes, said Terry. The fire department’s number one priority is the safety of residents.
“We knew we had to get on it very quickly and make an aggressive stand at the buildings and do our best to ensure that it didn’t cross the highway at all,” said Hildebrand. “Because if it had gotten a bite in the residential neighbourhoods, it would have been a different story this morning.”
Fire investigators were on scene Wednesday morning, however, they were unable to determine a specific cause of the blaze.
Golfers were back at the Lethbridge Country Club Wednesday, a day after the course was vacant due to the weather — and when about 30 people had to evacuate.
