Courtesy of the Town of Rainbow Lake:
Last night remained quiet on the Northern front. This gave our Fire department time to complete sprinkler deployments to the north side of Town where we will face the greatest threat and complete some training and coordination exercises. Most homes on Swan, Edgar, Olson, Mather and Tokay have been sprinklered. We have also fully sprinklered the Noralta where many of our Forestry personnel are staying and a number of other critical assets in Town. We have completed fire smarting on the Town’s critical assets, where we have had a Cat crew push back all the trees and grass around our water treatment plant, RMO station and sewer lift station. We have also removed the grass along the northern line starting from the golf course access trail behind swan and reaching across the northern part of our community. We striped the grass on the North side of Highway 58 West of the Town’s main access and will be working on the South side today. We have water tanks deployed throughout the engagement zone and 7 water trucks ready to keep those tanks full with more water trucks on standby if needed. We will be utilizing our Town water distribution system exclusively to run the sprinklers and will have raw water feed points setup at our water treatment plant to pull from our raw water cell there, the raw water reservoir for the Town and a number of other sources being investigated for viability. We currently have three fire engines in town with a fourth engine and a brush truck coming to Town today to provide additional support. Our Fire Department is supported by the Town of High Level Fire Chief and members bolstering our numbers and providing advice.
At 1pm today we will run a full test of our sprinkler deployment and get everything wet down in anticipation of a potentially busy afternoon. With the winds travelling from the WNW this will push the fires to pass over the North end of the Town. Our Fire Department has put in an incredible amount of work in a very short time and we are as ready as we can be for what the day brings.
On the Forestry front, work in the South East was completed creating a dozer line stretching from the South Eastern most corner of the fire all the way North back to our Airport. A parallel retardant line was placed to bolster the new dozer line and create a strong containment option. This line will be supported by ground and air crews throughout the day to protect the Cenovus plant. The same treatment was applied on the North side to protect the Town and in a perfect world will prevent the fire from meeting with our Fire Departments structural protection assets. Forestry will be focusing today on maintaining those containment lines to keep our Town and plant safe.
We do ask that everyone call in and register with our reception team at 1-780-560-0164 if you have not already. While we did get a list while we were evacuating, this was rushed and may not be 100% accurate. The safest bet is to register with this phone number so we can cross reference with our roadside list and ensure everyone is captured and know that you and your family are safe. By registering, you ensure that your family is tracked properly and this will assist as proof if you become eligible for the provincial evacuation payment.
There will be some homes who need to have their gas meters reset and their hot waters tanks relit. We will not begin that operation until after the fire threat has passed. With these winds traveling from the West threatening the Town and after that potentially Highway 58 it is still too early to start planning on when it may be safe to return. To assist with families trying to plan out their week, we do not anticipate being able to begin planning for a future reintegration until late into the weekend at the earliest.
Please stay safe and we will continue to push out daily updates here and on our Town of Rainbow Lake Facebook page. Also, check out our Facebook version of this update today as it will have some briefing photos of our fire fighters here in Town working long hours to keep our community safe.
