The Ponoka County Regional Fire Department dealt with several grassfires over the weekend and are asking residents to be especially careful during dry weather.
During dry seasons such as spring and fall, during harvest, conditions can become a tinderbox for potential grassfires, says Dennis Jones, Ponoka county regional fire chief.
“Please make sure you extinguish cigarette butts in the ashtray of your cars,” said Jones April 23.
Fire crews were called out to grassfires north on 2A near Chain Lakes and west of the Wolf Creek area on April 21.
In the evening on April 22, a farmer’s brush pile that had been burning days before and wasn’t fully extinguished started burning again and crews were called out to contain the flames.
The farmer had a permit for the burn.
Lacombe county issued a fire advisory April 23, due to windy and dry condition.
The Ponoka county fire department has held off calling its own fire advisory for Ponoka county so far, as the town did get some rain April 23 and snow April 24, as was expected from the forecast, says Jones.
The fire department is already looking at burn permits on a case-by-case basis, however, says Jones.
There are three levels of fire alerts: fire advisories, fire restrictions and fire bans.
Fire ban information can be found at www.albertafirebans.ca.