Firefighters from across Mountain View County were recently deployed to assist with the fight against the Chuckegg Creek wildfire near High Level in Northern Alberta.
The Chuckegg Creek wildfire covers up to 268,000 hectares and remained out of control at press time Monday.
Jordan Schaffer, Carstairs' fire chief, said that the Carstairs firefighters currently have no official request for deployment but they are prepared just in case.
"Everyone got home safe," said Schaffer. "There were no injuries or damage. It was definitely an eye-opener for some of our crews. It was nice I was able to dispatch some of my crew who assisted at the Fort McMurray fires. So they were able to use that experience up in High Level."
MIller said if they are called upon to return to High Level they will make sure they will be ready to go.
"We'll do a review and make sure we're not endangering our local taxpayers by depleting our resources," he said. "Mountain View County is able to respond in such large quantities with the five departments. We're always adamant that we're not putting our taxpayers or assets at risk."
In total, there were 15 firefighters from Mountain View County who went up to High Level from May 20 to May 29 in two different waves.
Cremona fire Chief Kevin Miller was one of the local firefighters who went there. He spent eight days in High Level working a double shift.
"It was primarily pre-impingement fire stuff," said Miller. "The town (High Level) was near a large body of fire that was primarily south and west of the town. The threat was that all these unburned fuels are sitting there and the wind fortunately was sort of holding the fire at bay away from the town."
Miller said that with the wind holding the fire at bay they were able to prepare the town prior to any fire impingement on the town.
"We were setting up sprinklers to protect anything of value from catching fire if and when the fire got to town," he said. "Our role was not necessarily to fight the forest fire; that was forestry. Ours was structure protection."
