‘A close one’: Lightning-caused fire threatens building at Manitoba’s Oak Hammock Marsh

A massive fire at Oak Hammock Marsh, just north of Winnipeg, came dangerously close to the wetlands’ new discovery centre before it was eventually put out by firefighters.

Winds took the fire away from the building in the nick of time, and firefighters handled the rest.

“They basically made sure the fire wouldn’t spread towards the building,” explained Jacques Bourgeois of the Oak Hammock Marsh Wetland Discovery Centre. “It came really close; it came to about 300-350 metres away from the building.

“We got a close one.”

Bourgeois says he was called by a staff member Sunday night around 8 p.m. in the middle of a lightning storm.

“She said there was some smoke coming out from around the centre,” Bourgeois recounted.

“She saw the marsh was literally on fire.”

Bourgeois says firefighters were called and they came right away.

The dry springtime in Manitoba is cause for concern. Bourgeois says the weather and deadfall – dead plants and leaves – created the perfect conditions for fires.

“Fire is a natural process, it usually does help to rejuvenate the Prairies,” he explained. “It’s something that’s been happening for thousands of years. For the past couple hundred years, we’ve been sort of managing the fires.

“What happens is there’s lots of deadfalls that accumulate and when a fire does start, it usually gets bigger. So what we usually do around the centre here, we do prescribed burns. So we burn the roof for example, we burn some of our tall grass prairie around here. But I guess it’s been such a dry spring. It’s like a little tinder box here, so the lightning strike just basically hit the ground and just spread the fire all around.”

As CityNews arrived at the marsh Monday, another fire from overnight rekindled and spread before crews got it under control.

“I guess it’s been such a dry spring,” Bourgeois said. “It’s like a little tinder box here, so the lightning strike just basically hit the ground and just spread the fire all around.”

Bourgeois says fires in the area are uncommon this time of year, but aren’t necessarily devastating to the local wildlife.

“I’m sure some of the birds that were nesting in the grass, they may have lost a few nests,” Bourgeois said. “But lucky enough it’s early spring, it’s not actually not that late in the season so they can actually still nest and have their young.”

For now, Bourgeois is grateful the building wasn’t touched, as it’s been under renovations for nearly two years. The centre opens to the public on May 24.

“It’s been a long 19 months until we can actually reopen the space to the public,” he said. “We were so excited to the grand opening, which is still going ahead. So we’re happy with that.”

The renovations actually helped firefighting efforts. At around 10 p.m., with staff and crews worried about the building catching fire, crews were able hook up to the building’s own water wells – something that was part of the renovation efforts.

“We were ready. In the event, we would have been good to go,” Bourgeois said.

“We had a fire a few years ago, it gave us a really good scare because it took place just south of the parking lot. It burnt actually part of our boardwalk. This is a thing we’re trying to avoid last night is, the fire to spread around the building and actually burn again the floating boardwalk or any kind of structures that are around the centre.”