Bone-dry conditions led to a fast-spreading grass fire in the southernmost part of our province Thursday evening.

At around 6:00 PM, the Vita Fire Department was called to a site near the Canada-US border where a large section of brush had suddenly gone up in smoke.

“The fire stretched out a mile long by a half-mile wide," describes Deputy Fire Chief Harv Nickel. Upon arrival, he says crews assumed defensive positions to protect two residential properties that were at risk on either side of the blaze. “There was one yard where the fire that was getting quite close but the guys went in there and got it all out.”

While Nickel’s crews were able to subdue the blaze in just over three hours, he says the work was exhausting. As the flames were contained mainly to swampland and scrub he says the fire was entirely inaccessible to their larger fire equipment.

“It was all done on foot or by quad,” he says, “we couldn’t reach anything with the trucks, so it was a lot of manual labour.”

The fire was extinguished at around 9:30 PM having caused no damage to homes or private property. Nickel says the cause remains unknown.