Police helicopter helps crews find, fight spate of wildfires using thermal cameras

Winnipeg police have lent a helping hand from above this month as house and wildfires continue to spread through southern Manitoba amid extremely dryspringconditions.

The police helicopter Air1and its thermal imaging cameras were used in nine fires in the first eight days of Mayto directcrews to fires and previously unknown hotspots on the ground related to blazes smouldering in the bush, woods or otherwise out of view. Police released video recordings fromAir1Thursday of itsefforts to help firefighters.

"It's fantastic;it gives you a really good view of the asset that [Air1] is," said Winnipeg's assistant chief of fire rescue operationsIhorHolowczynsky. "It really helps us."

Burn bans remain in effect throughout much of the Interlake, southern Manitoba and Winnipeg, the latter of whichis in the midst of its fourth driest spring in about 150 years.

Air1was dispatched to wildfires and house fires on Spence Street, RedondaStreet and Paulley Drive, Crescent Drive, Day Street and Gunn Road, Main Street and St. John's Avenue and Whiteshell Avenue. It also helped crews fighting a blaze at the heavily woodedTranscona Bioreserve.

Holowczynsky said the benefit of havingAir1involved is that the helicopter can cover wide areas quickly and scan the ground for fires using infrared technology.

"Even in the daytime it's difficult to tell where it's coming from," he said.

"We don't have a lot of hills for vantage points here, so you pull up to a field on fire [and] it's smoke, so you can't really tell where it's going or where would we start to mitigate that, so having that overhead view really helps."

Holowczynsky said grass and brush fires have been a problem because the city didn't receive that much snow in the winter or rain this spring.

"We recently had hot, dry, windy conditions;that's the ideal recipe for grass and brush fires to occur," he said."It doesn't take much to get it started and then to propagate across larger areas."

Homeowners should keep their lawns and property clear of woody debris that could act as tinder to fires,Holowczynskyadded.