{"id":657187,"date":"2026-05-09T01:39:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/657187\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T01:39:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:39:24","slug":"several-grassfires-burn-in-edmonton-as-city-steps-up-prevention-measures-edmonton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/657187\/","title":{"rendered":"Several grassfires burn in Edmonton as city steps up prevention measures – Edmonton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edmonton firefighters were on scene at several grassfires Friday, battling against conditions ideal for fires to quickly get out of control.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOne of the concerns we all have, whether you\u2019re a resident or you\u2019re a part of Edmonton Fire<\/a> Rescue Services, is that it\u2019s very, very tinder dry at this point,\u201d said District Fire Chief Brian Williams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe temperatures are coming up and now we\u2019ve got high winds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams was on the scene at a grassfire near 137th Avenue and Mark Messier Trail just after 9:30 a.m. It is believed the fire started in an encampment and conditions spread it over a larger area.<\/p>\n

Crews had the fire under control and contained within an hour of arriving.<\/p>\n

A few other fires were reported along Winterburn Road in west Edmonton early Friday afternoon, at least one of which was also believed to have been started in an encampment.<\/p>\n

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Later in the afternoon, around 2:30 p.m, a large grass fire took off across fields in the city\u2019s far northeast, north of Manning Drive near 227 Avenue NW and Meridian Street NW.<\/p>\n

Edmonton Fire Rescue Services said ten units were dispatched to that blaze. There are no fire hydrants in the rural area so tankers were forced to regularly go reload with more water.<\/p>\n

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The fires occurred the same day the city conducted a prescribed burn in Jan Reimer Park, located on the west end across the North Saskatchewan River from the Terwillegar dog park.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an 18-hectare burn,\u201d said EFRS operations assistant deputy chief Neil Robertson.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite a bit larger than the burns we\u2019ve done in the past and it gives us an opportunity with some pretty good safety features around here to go as we\u2019re going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta deploys wildfire resources amid evacuation alerts, damage\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

In a news release, the city said the burn was done as a part of its wildfire prevention effort to \u201cproactively reduce wildfire risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cPrescribed burns reduce wildfire fuel, help prevent high-intensity fires, return important nutrients to the ecosystem and increase biodiversity that supports habitat enhancement,\u201d the release added.<\/p>\n

Williams said the biggest message to people is to stay vigilant, and to think about what could happen if planning an outside fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe safe, because we want to have a better summer than what we\u2019ve had in the past,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a busy few summers, for sure. We just don\u2019t want to see any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edmonton firefighters were on scene at several grassfires Friday, battling against conditions ideal for fires to quickly get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,105143,23752,51991,243295,243296,1133,243297],"class_list":["post-657187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city-of-edmonton","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-fire","tag-edmonton-grassfires","tag-jan-reimer-park","tag-weather","tag-wildfire-prevention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}