A second contingent of firefighters was sent to High Level on June 16 to help battle massive wildfires in the district.
Eight firefighters in total from departments in Carstairs, Cremona, Didsbury and Olds have gone up, as well as a tender truck from Carstairs, a fire engine from Cremona, and a command truck from Olds.
Jordan Schaffer, fire chief for Carstairs, said the crews and equipment left from Mountain View County at 4 a.m. on June 16 and he expects that unit will be there for about four days.
"At the moment they're being deployed to the High Level fire," said Schaffer. "But once they get there they may be deployed elsewhere."
The first group of firefighters from Mountain View County was deployed to the area from May 20 to 28.
"The fires have tripled in size since they were last up there about a month ago," said Schaffer. "They've evacuated the town of La Crete (135 kilometres southeast of High Level). Now the fire is impinging on High Level and they are on alert status."
The Chuckegg Creek wildfire, which is approximately 10 kilometres from High Level, is now over 325,000 hectares and is still considered out of control. In total, there are 851 firefighters and personnel, 52 helicopters and 153 pieces of heavy equipment on site.
Schaffer said he expects that the fire crews will be doing similar duties to what they did the last time, which was mostly preventive maintenance.
"At the moment we've made preparations for two tours at least to go up," he said. "We'll probably send another crew up give or take Sunday or Monday. Somewhere in there. Our goal is to keep the tours around four to five days."
