UPDATE: As of 4 pm (April 30th) Lacombe County issued a Fire Advisory: https://lacombeonline.com/local/lacombe-county-issues-fire-advisory-due-to-dry-conditions 


If you noticed local fire crews responding to calls over the weekend, particularly on Saturday (April 27th), they were likely travelling to grass fires.

(file photo from several grass fires in July/17 between Lacombe and Blackfalds)

Ponoka County crews battled two large grass fires east of Rimbey, and Lacombe County crews from Clive, Lacombe and Bentley all responded to grass fires.

Lacombe County Fire Chief Drayton Bussiere says given the late arrival of spring, it's surprising how dry conditions are.

“We went from a fresh snowfall to really dry conditions, and the frost isn’t even out of the ground yet so we have lots of standing water in certain places and then right next to that we have really dry grass.  We had a grass fire last week that there was water running through the ditches and grass burning on either side of it, so it’s kind of interesting conditions out there right now”.

In terms of what sparked the grass fires in Lacombe County, Bussiere explains.

“The majority of those calls were actually caused by old controlled burns, and so some were from the winter, some were from a month or so ago, but it is really dry and so when we get windy days like we did on Saturday, what quite often happens is those fires rekindle and then they start a bit of a grass fire, and that’s what we were dealing with over the weekend”.

While Red Deer County has suspended all burn permits, Lacombe County has not, but Bussiere says they are monitoring conditions closely.

He is reminding landowners with permits that they are responsible for making sure a fire is all the way out, he encourages anyone who has done any recent burning to re-visit those sites, and asks any current permit holders to exercise caution and follow all requirements on their permit.