Darren Campbell
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 19/98) - After a busy fire season in the North Slave, things are winding down for forestry officials.

No new fires have been found in the North Slave as of press time. Lance Schmidt, the department of resources duty officer for the North Slave region, said personnel and equipment have been cut down drastically since those smoky Yellowknife days in late July.

He said from here on in it's man, not lightning, that is the greatest fire threat.

"There is still some potential with a few more dry days," said Schmidt. "Lightning fires aren't much of a concern. It is person caused fires that is our main concern."

He said with the hunting season beginning for most of the Yellowknife population by Sept. 1, there is always a concern that open campfires from hunters will be left unattended and start a new fire.

Schmidt said at the height of the Tibbitt Lake fire threat in the North Slave, the department had close to 200 people working on fires in the region. They were also using 12 helicopters and four air tanker groups.

He said they are down to 10 people working on the fires now, along with one tanker group and one helicopter.

Schmidt added that this year was the busiest fire season in six years and put added pressure on the fire crews. So far, there have been 100 fires in the North Slave.

"The difficulty was the close proximity of large fires to Yellowknife," said Schmidt. "The priority of it created more interest."

Brad Heath, who has a cabin on Prelude Lake that he lives in six months of the year, said he is glad the fire threat is almost over.

He said he and his wife have always done fire prevention, like trimming spruce trees near their property, to ensure the cabin doesn't go up in smoke.

But he said even that would not have been good enough if the fire crews had not done a good job fighting the fires.

"I think we got off lucky. We owe a big debt of thanks to the people who fought the fires," said Heath. "Without them I have no doubt the fire would have gone through to Prelude Lake."

Schmidt said he hopes when the fire season is finally over, that he can put together a public presentation about what happened regarding the fires in the North Slave this year.