A forest fire in Levack on Saturday spread within 500 metres of a residential area before firefighters were able to contain it, Deputy Chief Jesse Oshell told Sudbury.com on Sunday.
The fire spread outward from the hillside of what used to be the old Levack ski hill.
Sudbury No.12, as it was later named by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, was reported to the Greater Sudbury Fire Services at 1:25 p.m. on May 23 and is currently being held at a size of 10 hectares.
Exactly how the fire could have started is difficult to determine, said Oshell, but at this point, his team is fairly certain there was human influence involved. Various factors were considered to reach this conclusion, he said, including the fire's location and behaviour.
Further investigation into the incident remains ongoing, however, the bulk of which will resume once the fire has been extinguished.
It is precisely the fire's peculiar location that made controlling so difficult, Oshell went on to explain, that and the conditions of the day. Given Saturday's high winds and dry landscape, the fire had the ideal conditions to spread to the community located below.
Attention was, therefore, focused on pushing the fire back up the hill from the roadside, said Oshell, ultimately avoiding the need for any residents to be evacuated.
Around 30 per cent of Sudbury's local volunteer firefighters were utilized in response to this and another fire in the town of Worthington, dispatched according to their particular location. Sudbury No.12 was tended to by teams from Levack, Chelmsford, and Dowling, while Sudbury No.14 was fought by Lively, Whitefish, and Beaver Lake.
Find more information on local firefighting efforts over the weekend here.
