Kevin Sexton has seen forest fires before, but none like this one. “The water bombers dropping water ... you could tell it was just vaporized, just steam before it even got close to the ground,' the mill owner told BarbDeanSimmons SaltWire
It was like adding gas to the flames, pushing the fire to burn faster, he said.
“In standing timber alone, we’ve lost about five or six months’ supply for the mill,” he said. “That’s about 3,400 tractor trailer loads of logs.”There are about 25 heavy equipment operators and mechanics, and another 25 truck drivers, who would normally be involved with Sexton’s commercial logging site at Paradise Lake.
The mill at Lethbridge is still running, said Sexton, but they’ve got only a two-week supply of timber in inventory.That could affect the 100 or so people who work at the manufacturing site.Last week he was getting ready, at the request of forestry officials, to use his excavators to try to build a fire break at the front of the blaze.
All they can do, he said, is hope for rain, hours and hours of rain to drown the fire front that runs for kilometres.
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