A still from a video of the firefighting effort taken by Jeremy Campbell and posted to Facebook.
SOUTH FRONTENAC — A baler bearing seized and overheated, sparking a 20-acre wildfire in South Frontenac Township on Sunday, Aug. 10.
Firefighters from three municipalities spent much of the afternoon extinguishing the blaze along Rutledge Road, near the small community of Missouri. Crews responded around 1:25 p.m. to the “vegetation fire,” as described by the local municipality in social media posts. Perth Road and Rutledge Road reopened to traffic later that evening.
The event coincided with a dry summer punctuated by smoky skies largely generated by massive wildfires in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with a number also burning in northwestern Ontario. In Eastern Ontario, Kawartha Lakes firefighters are currently dealing with a bona fide forest fire involving 67 acres near the town of Burnt River.
According to Natural Resources Canada, uncontrolled forest fires that spread into tree canopies are a phenomenon of coniferous forests and rarely occur in deciduous forests.
