Just got back from a 2 week evacuation of our town..Drayton Valley. They managed to keep the fire out of town, it went around the south side of town. Only 5 houses lost and many outbuildings in the farmland around town. Replacing about 600-700 power poles on rural roads. Big fires west of town now blowing mostly to the northwest, some of them are 40 -50 mile long burn paths and several miles wide. Rather smokey to say the least. We need the wind to die down and desperatly need rain. It was started by a lawn mower southeast of town 3 weeks ago. Fire was extinguished before it went anywhere... so they thought but never sent anyone to monitor it after, a week later the winds came up, must have been a hot spot, it reignited and took off and turned into a monster. Had they checked on it it would have never happened.
