By Tina Comeau

NovaNewsNow.com

A fixed-wing unit of air tankers from Miramichi, New Brunswick arrived in southwestern Nova Scotia overnight Thursday to help in fight a couple of forest fires that have been burning in Shelburne County.

They were sent back Friday after the fires they were brought in to fight were contained enough that their help was no longer needed.

While in the region five aircraft dumped water and fire retardant on the fires Thursday evening, before overnighting in Yarmouth. A sixth had been slated to join the unit on Friday.

The AT-802 Air Tractors were to make runs to the fire scenes from the airport in Yarmouth. It takes them about 15 minutes to reach where the fires are.

But because the six planes were land based, they would have to fill up with their water and foam retardant at the airport in Yarmouth.

A fire near Clyde River, Shelburne County, has been burning since Wednesday. Firefighters also had to attend to another fire near Jordan Falls on Thursday.

Chief Pilot Eric Bradley of Forest Protection Limited in New Brunswick says they were told Thursday afternoon their resources were required in southwestern Nova Scotia. He says it took them about an hour to make the trip from Miramichi.

The AT-802s have a 3,100 litre hopper capacity, or 820 gallons. There are six aircraft, which Bradley said Friday morning will fly in groups of three at the fire scene at a time, ensuring there are always aircraft on the scene while the others are making runs back to the airport in Yarmouth to be refilled.

“The idea is to keep gallons of water on the fire at all times,” he said, adding he didn’t know how long the aircraft would be required.

According to Forest Protection Limited’s website, the low-maintenance turbine engine aircraft are equipped for dual role fire and spray missions. The Air Tractor At-802s can be used to contain spot fires, cool hot spots and create retardant fire breaks in areas where it might be difficult or unsafe to have people and heavy equipment working.

In addition to the six At-802s, there is another plane that flies with the group carrying a forest ranger that acts as a spotter and gives guidance on the strategy for the fire attack.

The unit was recently involved in fighting a large forest fire outside of Halifax, although Bradley said there were only three planes involved there because they did not want to leave New Brunswick without any aircraft. The fixed wing covers all of New Brunswick.

The fire in the Upper Clyde River area of Shelburne County hadn’t grown overnight Wednesday and fire crews were making progress Thursday.

There were reports that the fire had started in Yarmouth County around Bloody Creek, but Jennifer Gavin, a spokesperson for the Department of Natural Resources, said the fire actually started about four or five kilometres away from the Yarmouth County line.

Mid-morning on Friday Gavin said there had been great impact made in the Clyde River fire, the first of the two fires. Rain overnight had helped the situation, along with the arrival of the AT-802s from New Brunswick. A water bomber from Quebec was on standby if needed.

“The fire in Clyde River, at the height of it, it covered 125 hectares. Right now there is no open flame and there is a little bit of smoke,” she said around 10:30 Friday morning. “There’s still some hot spots in the interior of the fire that ground crews are working on but they feel they’ve made some good progress and they feel that it is contained at this point.”

The Jordan Falls fire, which is about 150 hectares in size, was also considered contained, although Gavin said there are still some small to medium sized open flames in the interior of the fire.

“So they still have ground crews working on that as well,” she said.