Swan Hills residents given green light to return home

Some residents in Lac La Biche County and Grande Prairie County are the latest Albertans to be forced from their homes by wildfires.

Swan Hills residents are able to return home Thursday for the first time since May 26, when the northern Alberta community was evacuated because of a nearby wildfire threat.

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Re-entry started at 11 a.m. Highway 33 into the community is open but with reduced speed limits because crews are working in the area.

The community of about 1,300 roughly 220 kilometres northwest of Edmonton will remain on a four-hour evacuation alert.

“Please be aware that the wildfire danger still exists in our region, and you should be prepared in the event the situation worsens. Please be cautious and courteous during the re-entry process,” read a notice posted on the town’s website.

The blaze that prompted Swan Hills’ evacuation, called the Edith Lake wildfire, is about eight kilometres north of the town and was last measured at 169 square kilometres.

Alberta Wildfire reclassified its status from “out of control” to “being held” Wednesday evening, meaning the provincial agency does not expect it to grow past its current boundaries given current weather conditions and resources.

“‘We established enough guard with Swan Hills being to the south of that fire that we were comfortable enough and letting them know that the fire was secure enough that they could, if they wanted to, lift their evacuation order and allow folks to come back home – which is the goal,” Alberta Wildfire information officer Derrick Forsythe told CTV News Edmonton.

Firefighting resources will stay assigned to the fire.

The Edith Lake and Chrystina Lake Provincial Recreation Areas will remain closed.

More information about re-entry protocols is available online.

Wind expected to push B.C. wildfire into Alberta

After being on alert for one week because of a fire south of Dawson Creek, B.C., residents in Alberta were told to leave their homes on Thursday.

The evacuated area is west of Beaverlodge in Grande Prairie County. It’s not known how many people live in the area.

The 65-square kilometre Kiskatinaw River wildfire is just two kilometres west of the Alberta-B.C. boundary.

B.C. Wildfire Service said it was anticipating a challenging weekend, with a cold front bringing in wind gusts up to 70 km/h.

“There’s a probability – a pretty good probability – that that’s at some point going across the border,” Forsythe said.

Alberta Wildfire is coordinating with B.C. authorities.

Evacuees were told to register at the Hythe Community Library.

Other areas on watch

Elsewhere in Alberta, part of the County of Northern Lights, in the far north, was put on evacuation alert because of an east-moving wildfire fuelled by wind and dry conditions. Residents were told to prepare to leave on short notice.

And in Lac La Biche County, part of which was evacuated on Wednesday, slow fire growth has allowed crews to make progress on infrastructure protective measures, Forsythe said. The evacuated area hosts a number of oil and gas operators, as well as hunting and fishing outfitters.

“I’m not the expert, but I have a pretty good guess that we’re looking at least another week to 10 days of this type of concern and fire activity only ramping up, so we’re far from over,” Lac La Biche County’s John Kokotilio said.

More details about any of Alberta’s emergency alerts can be found online.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg