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Big blaze still growing
By CHEN CHEKKI
Saturday, May 12, 2007

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A Northwestern Ontario forest fire about one-third the size of Thunder Bay forced more evacuations Saturday by provincial firefighters.
The 10,000-hectare blaze – roughly 130 kilometres southwest of Thunder Bay – had fire crews from the Ministry of Natural Resources knocking on more than 100 camp doors in the area of Prelate Lake and Northern Light Lake, said Dave Jackson, fire information officer for the MNR.
“It‘s a major, major, major forest fire,” he said. Jackson said flames were shooting up to 30 metres in the air, above the tops of matured area trees.
MNR crews intermittently bombed the inferno with water bombers during the last few days, but have been unable to do much more due to the enormous size of the fire and the need to divert resources to other fires.
On Friday, the MNR evacuated eight people from camps on Saganaga Lake as a precaution, which came a day after nine camps on nearby Gunflint Lake became destroyed by the growing blaze.
MNR crews had placed sprinklers on as many camps as possible, but were unable to save the nine camps.
Known as Thunder Bay Fire 37, the flames spread from Minnesota around Tuesday and went from 300 hectares to its current size on Thursday due to warm weather and winds.
Its slowly growing in size, but the exact size is hard to figure out because “it‘s pretty smokey down there,” Jackson said.
“It‘s hard to see the boundaries.”
And the blaze, which lies along a swath between Gunflint Lake, Northern Light Lake and westward to the Canada-U.S. border, was expected to get bigger by today due to strengthening winds, Jackson said.
As of press time last night, roads were closed to southbound traffic at the corner of Burchell Lake and East Nelson Lake Roads, as well as the non-paved section of Highway 588 leading west into the Northern Light Lake area, between Sandstone Lake and Round Lake Road. An information kiosk has been set up at the corner of Highways 588 and 593 concerning the situation.
The closures are a part of the MNR‘s Emergency Area Order, which applies to an area bounded in the south by the Canada-U.S. border, west by Quetico Park, north by Highway 11 and just east of Whitefish Lake.
The order gives the MNR the right to close roads and evacuate areas as needed. Fire risk conditions remain extreme throughout the region. No open campfires or other flames were allowed in the entire Northwest region as of Saturday.
Elsewhere in the region, a similar-sized forest fire continues to rage nearly 300 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay – six kilometres southeast of Savant Lake in the Sioux Lookout District. As of late Friday, the MNR barred travel along Rusty Myer‘s Camp 700 Road and its connecting roads, 701 Road and its connecting roads, as well as 702 Road, unless permitted by the Sioux Lookout District MNR.
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