Half Extinguished Fires are Not an Option!

Today has been very busy. The fire at the waste management site has brought out the best in a lot of people for whom I need to say a very loud thank you. The thank you goes to our fire department led by Ron, Dave and Rod, Eric Friesen who worked hard Tuesday morning as did Ron Hunter, and to Jamie Holland for dispatching a water tanker to the fire site. I also want to thank our team at the Town Office: Bernie, Audrey, Theresa, Wayne, Kim, Kamruz, Sharif, Gary, and the others I haven't seen for their professionalism and dedication as they worked to contain and now suppress the fire and smoke.

The fire took up a lot of resources Monday night and Tuesday morning and will require more over the coming days. To ensure the safety of Kindersley we decided to declare a local state of emergency. As are result we can conserve and marshal our local resources and have access to provincial emergency resources. A big thank you goes to the provincial Emergency Response Team (I don't recall their real designation) and Ralph, Michael, and Jennifer from the Ministry of Environment. We also have on site an mobile air monitoring station.

The calm air has been immensely helpful to contain the fire; unfortunately it means the smoke doesn't dissipate quickly.

Today saw a lot of information gathering and the formation of a variety of solutions to suppress the fire and smoke. The smoke is a priority because it is not healthy. If the smoke is in your neighbourhood stay indoors (I will post a notice later.)

There will be an active approach to the fire and smoke activity beginning tomorrow morning (Oct 9). This includes ripping apart the bales and smothering them with foam to suppress the fire and smoke. The crews will continue with this process and when necessary use sand and dirt to further smother the fire. This is a labour intensive process. Should this process not work then we will bring in helicopters to drop fire retardant from baskets onto the site. This will smother the fire and allow the bales to be broken. Only putting the fire half out is not an option.

Due to the nature of the waste site it could take awhile to completely extinguish the fire. Known unknowns include: how soft is the earth around the bales due to the former pit, how deep are the bales, and how will the fuel source (bales) react to the efforts.

I spent a good part of the day in our Emergency Operations Centre and am confident the fire and smoke will be fully put out. This event is not cheap. The various options we considered are comparable. Using men and equipment to dig up the bales and extinguish them, monitor them, and rebury them is labour intensive and dirty work that needs cleaning up. There is little investment up front but there are extra costs afterwards. The helicopter is expensive at the beginning but requires little clean up afterwards (theoretically). Unfortunately for us we have to bear this cost. Thankfully the province is covering their costs. However, we may need to ask the province for some financial relief.

It has been an interesting week: it started with Town safety due to the sighting of a dangerous sex offender and is ending with Town safety due to a fire at our waste management facility.