Snowfall helps extinguish wildfire in Taché and Springfield

It seems the recent snowfall was exactly what was needed to help extinguish the wildfire that was burning over the past few days north of Ross. 

The Taché Fire Department started monitoring the fire on Friday, March 22nd after residents reported seeing a lot of smoke north of Ross. 

“So, we went, investigated, and we did find that the fire was not yet within the R.M. of Taché’s boundaries, it was still in Springfield, but because of the wind direction and everything, it was traveling towards us,” says Chief Allan Rau. “And by Saturday morning, it had entered the R.M. of Taché. So, we were vigilant by doing ground patrols as well as using a drone to see where it was, where it was going, how quickly it was moving. And that happened throughout the weekend.” 

On Monday, the fire approached a couple of residences, and some crews were deployed to protect the structures. 

“We did actually put one fire out on Monday night which was coming up upon a residence. We took care of that, and that was great but there were still a number of fires still that we could see in the distance in the north and the center of the area there between 52 N and 54 N which was not of any concern to us.” 

(Photo Credit: Facebook.com/TacheFire)

Rau says they sent out a crew on Tuesday to check on the fire. 

“They smelled no smoke, they saw no smoke,” he reports. “That could be attributed to how strong the winds were, and the smoke was low to the ground. But we have no concerns from any residents at this time and we're hoping that that little bit of precipitation that we've got snuffed out the remaining fire for us.” 

With much of the fire burning in a heavy swamp area, Rau says that created significant challenges for their firefighters. 

“Because it is a marshland, the terrain makes it difficult for you to get in there and we actually would never go inside. We were able to traverse a farmer's field to get to that fire that we did extinguish. So that was easy enough to get off one of the roads to drive on there because it was still frozen hard.” 

Rau says, for the most part, the fire was too far away to be a big concern and not worth risking lives to extinguish. 

“Yes, it was burning, but it wasn't threatening anything. So, we just thought, this is a perfect way to burn off something that could start up in another month and burn even more fiercely.”