Dry weather and high winds made conditions ripe for several fires over the weekend.
Foothills Fire crews were on-scene at two grassfires and two structure fires between Friday morning and Sunday evening.
Fire Chief Jim Smith said the first fire ignited at 594 Avenue south of High River around 11:30 a.m. Oct 25. Crews were on-scene until about 7 p.m., when it was believed the fire was under control.
"We ended up having to come back and extinguish the bales so we weren't finished there until about 3 a.m.," said Smith.
When firefighters had left the scene at 7 p.m. there was no concern over the hay bales, he said. Winds were going to the north and all the fields had been tilled - but the cold front moving in changed the wind direction and caused the bales to flare up, he said.
A second call had come in just after noon on Oct. 25 about a fire west of Cayley at Highway 540 and Meridian Street, he said. The current suspicion is two hunters shooting at a coyote missed and their bullet struck a rock, causing sparks that ignited in the wind.
"That's the going theory at the moment," said Smith.
Foothills Fire was assisted at that fire by members of a local Hutterite colony, he said.
"They came out and they did a marvelous job with their farming equipment," said Smith.
The Hutterite volunteers helped protect a home near the flames, and he said their work kepr the flames away from a number of homes that would have been at risk.
"They were helping us out big time," said Smith. "The work of the crews really removed that emergency to those homes, especially on Meridian."
Homes near the fire didn't burn, but he said they did incur a lot of smoke damage.
The south fire was extinguished by 6 p.m., he said.
But crews weren't done there.
Saturday evening there was a structure fire at Dunbow Road and 16 Street East, and Sunday evening a 54-by-40-foot barn went up in flames in the DeWinton area, at the corner of 242 Avenue and 80 Street West, he said. The barn fire had crews from Priddis, Black Diamond, Spruce Meadows and Heritage Pointe on-scene.
"it was just a wild weekend for everyone," said Smith.
He said cooler temperatures and snow didn't help the situation.
In fact, it made things worse.
"Everything starts to freeze up," said Smith. "The firefighters are frozen up, and it just makes it difficult to fight these fires. It was -21 at both of these structure fires, and it makes for interesting firefighting."
He said the fire department is grateful to citizens who call in potential fires to 911, because early detection means crews can get situations under control sooner.
Smith said he recommends all residents of Foothills County sign up for the emergency alert system.
"We really encourage people to sign up for that so they can get alert messaging and information about instances that are going on in the Foothills," he said.
With files from Brent Calver.
