Gracie Wilson reaches underground up to her armpit as she carefully checks the tube left by a burned out root to see if there are any hot spots left.

Gracie Wilson reaches underground up to her armpit as she carefully checks the tube left by a burned out root to see if there are any hot spots left.

Firefighters cold-trail Thuya Road fire

Cool damp weather helps battle against Little Fort fires

With cooler and wetter weather last week, fire crews were able to get a hand on the Thuya Road fire and the Dunn Lake fire, although both were listed as out of control as of Sunday.

Crews had the Thuya Road fire 90 per cent contained and were working their way in from the perimeter, cold-trailing to find and extinguish any hot spots.

Although not so spectacular as firefighting in the movies, cold-trailing is important work and needs to be done carefully and aggressively to be effective.

The Thuya Road fire was estimated at 556 hectares.

Total resources on the two fires in the Little Fort fire complex were listed as 268 firefighting personnel and 14 pieces of heavy equipment, plus structural protection units (regular fire departments) and air tankers, as needed.

The Dunn Lake fire was estimated at 3,035 hectares and 50 per cent contained. Crews continued to wet down hot spots on the perimeter, with a focus on the northern and eastern flanks, while supporting CN crews working on flare-ups along the rail corridor as needed.

The Thuya Road fire is located southwest of Little Fort while the Dunn Lake fire is northeast of that community.

Clearwater Times