Wildfire near Keji now 35 per cent contained despite challenging conditions
Posted Aug 11, 2016 06:29:37 AM.
Last Updated Aug 11, 2016 10:14:29 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Recent warm, dry and windy conditions have been challenging for fire crews fighting a number of fires throughout the province.
Despite that, ground has been made on a fire burning near Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site.
The Department of Natural Resources says the fire at Seven Mile Lake is still active and has grown to about 377 hectares in size, but is now 35 per cent contained.
A fire at Ten Mile Lake in Queens County is also being held at about 8.3 hectares.
Fires at at Perch Lake in Pictou County, Greenfield in Queens County and West Dalhousie and Maitland Bridge in Annapolis County are completely contained.
A smaller fire at Coldbrook in Annapolis County along with three small fires near Morganville in Digby County are all out.
As of Thursday morning, Highway 8 remains closed due to active water bombing
The province is still restricting travel and activities in the woods and a fire ban remains in effect.
A special air quality statement remains in effect for areas downwind of the smoke plume.
Hants County has been added to the list along with along with parts of Lunenburg, Queens, Annapolis and Kings counties.
Environment Canada says increased pollution from the smoke could make breathing difficult for those with lung diseases like asthma and COPD.
High humidex values could also aggravate health issues.
Those fighting the fires are hoping for a little bit of help from mother nature today with a chance of showers in the forecast, but NEWS 95.7 meteorologist Richard Zurawski says he’s not expecting much.
“I don’t think we’re going to get that much in the way of precipitation,” he explained. “Right now at most, maybe 2 to 5 millimetres of drizzle, so that’s not really going to do much.”
Zurawski says it looks like the weekend may be wetter, he’s hoping for 10 to 20 millimetres, but we may get less than we were expecting.
