Crews continue work to contain Saint Andrews-area fire

Firefighters are back on the ground Thursday near Saint Andrews as they continue to battle a forest fire.

The 540-hectare blaze known as the ‘Stein Lake’ fire is burning in the Bocabec and Chamcook areas.

In an update Thursday morning on Facebook, Saint Andrews Mayor Brad Henderson said the blaze did not expand overnight.

Henderson said crews are focused on putting out hotspots and building a fire line with bulldozers.

“The terrain is extremely difficult but they continue to make steady progress,” the mayor said in his post.

On Wednesday, the province’s wildfire prevention officer said crews were dealing with “several hundred” hotspots.

“Most of them are well inside the burn area so they’re not on the edges — those are the ones that would concern us most. If those get going again then there’s the fresh fuel for it to continue burning,” said Roger Collet.

“As long as they’re inside, there’s less of a concern for us, but we’re keeping an eye on them because there is some fuel inside the burn area that hasn’t burned up yet.”

Collet said the fire remained “pretty calm” on Wednesday and was mostly smouldering at this point.

He said the fire is still considered out of control currently, even though it was not getting any bigger.

“We estimate maybe about 15 to 20 per cent contained, but the mechanism doesn’t allow us to call it contained until we get to 100 per cent,” said Collet.