As the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry continues to battle wildfires in the northeast, the ministry has a request for boaters in the region.
Shayne McCool, the ministry’s Fire Information Officer, is asking boaters to avoid using the lakes water bombers are scooping water from they then drop on the nearby fires.
McCool says it’s very difficult for a plane to get water from lakes where there are many boaters and that’s forcing them to head out to lakes further away.
“The shorter the turnaround period, the more effective the water bombers become at attacking the fire,” McCool said.
McCool says the minister is also setting up a command post at a skating rink facility in River Valley in West Nipissing.
He says a team will be brought in to manage the number of fires from the West Nipissing base camp.
McCool says as far as he knows no firefighters have been hurt as they try to get the upper hand on the wildfires.
He says about 400 Ontario firefighters from the MNRF are battling fires in the northeast and adds firefighters from Alberta and British Columbia are helping their eastern colleagues.
Many for the 70 plus fires have been caused by lightning and McCool says in an effort to help firefighters, the ministry has placed the northeast under a restricted fire zone meaning no opening burning of any kind.
The exception is if someone is using a gas stove for cooking or warmth.
Meanwhile one of the forest fires in the northeast is on the outer edges of West Nipissing.
Mayor Joanne Savage says it’s about 12 kilometres north of River Valley in an area called Baie Jeanne.
Access to the site is from Highway 539A to Highway 805 which is a secondary roadway.
Savage says there are a lot of people in that area this time of year who are at a camp or cottage.
The fire has grown quickly in a matter days going from about 25 hectares near the start of the weekend to more than 500 by late Sunday.
Savage says people are concerned but so far there is no evacuation order unlike about 20 homeowners in the Temagami region who were forced to leave their homes on Sunday.