STAR CITY— Shaun Stewart, Melfort’s fire chief, believes the origin of a recent RM of Star City brush fire to be a smoldering pile that had been lit on fire sometime in late February or early March, when the area still had two feet of snow.
This is the same cause of a separate grass fire in the RM of Star City, which ignited 18,000 square metres on April 30.
The fire department responded on May 7 at 3:05 p.m. to a brush fire in the RM of Star City. When Crews arrived they found a large area of bush that was on fire.
Stewart believes the winds on the afternoon of May 7 fanned the smoldering pile and it reignited.
Fire crews began working by flanking the fire and stopping its forward progress. A front end loader was used to make a fire break around the east side of the fire.
The fire was jumping the break in a few areas, but the crew was able to contain the jumps until a D7 bulldozer was brought in to widen the break to ensure the fire would not jump it.
With this, the fire break expanded to approximately 25 feet wide around the entire fire area, containing it.
Crews were on scene for 4.5 hrs.
No injuries were reported at the scene.
Crews cooled down the hot spots inside the area and were in the process of packing up when another call came in for a fire at the Hi Lite feedlot 5 km south of Ethelton.
Firefighters proceeded to the next call.
