As the work day ended for many, in the late afternoon of Tuesday, May 15, Wallace District Fire Department volunteers suited up and rushed to the scene of several fires along the north ditch of PR 259.
Fire Chief Brad Yochim said, “This makes a total of 14 fires in 14 days.”
On the way down the valley hill, east-bound motorists on the road spotted a fire as it sprang up in dry grass along the roadside. By the time they turned around and drove to the top of the valley to call 911, several more fires had broken out west of the valley as well.
Firefighters extinguished all these grass fires, but damage was done to road markers and fence posts along the route.
Some minutes after the fire started a citizen came on the scene and also played a role in the fire control along the west side of the Assiniboine valley. As the intense smoke at times obscured vision on the busy provincial road, he was warning motorists of the parked firefighting equipment on that steep hill.
With tinder dry conditions on a 30 degree afternoon, these fires could have been started by something as simple as sparks from a sticky truck brake passing by, but that’s just speculation, says Yochim
