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Controlled burn, wind ignites Cumberland-area forest fire

A deer darts across a winding gravel road from ember-covered terrain to smouldering ground.

A deer darts across a winding gravel road from ember-covered terrain to smouldering ground. All around, orange glowing light mixes with the violet skies of twilight, as firefighters battle a forest fire just outside of Cumberland, started by days of dry weather and a particularly windy day.

"What happened was we had a controlled burn and then all of the sudden the weather got nice," said Cumberland Fire Chief Mike Williamson, as he ushered his troops out of the Hancock Timber Resource Group-owned land to regroup Sunday night. "There's too much wind to get in front of it. So I'm not putting any crews in there."

The fires were lit Oct. 7 because it was a good venting day.

"We watch the atmospheric pressure," he said. "It tells us the smoke is going to go straight up."

Three weeks later, 50 kilometre-per-hour northwest winds whipped up and slash piles flared across the island.

"We'll do some punishment to it tomorrow morning," he said. "You've gotta look at the wind situation. You have to think about the safety of your crew first."

Of the 36 piles originally lit, 10-15 piles had reignited.

"We burn these piles to make it safer but you can't control weather 100 per cent of the time," he said. "We knocked quite a few of them down but one got away on us."

Officials dealt with similar problems all the way from Kelsey Bay down to Nanaimo.

On Monday, fire crews were back on top of the fire in the Cumberland district and worked throughout the day to get things under control.

"We got lucky today — we got everything closed off," Williamson said at the end of the battle. "It's just burning itself out within itself."