After a group of people were caught attempting to trespass at a Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency air operations base, the provincial government is asking the public not to interfere with wildfire and emergency personnel operations.

SPSA President Marlo Pritchard says between 4:30pm and 5pm at the base in La Ronge, a group of individuals was seen coming toward a gate and attempted to walk into a secure area at the La Ronge Air Base.  Staff stopped them, closed the gates and the individuals left. Pritchard says a public advisory was issued to make people aware that there is a reason why there are gates and fences at the base.  He also clarified that the advisory did not have anything to do with NDP staff that were shooting video from a paid public parking lot.

The NDP states the SPSA advisory is a “desperate, ridiculous, and a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that nearly half of their air tankers were secretly grounded during the worst wildfires in a decade.”

The Province then released a statement regarding said grounded air tankers, stating that the SPSA has access to a combination of land-based and amphibious wildfire tankers, including four Convair 580A land-based air tankers, six CL-215T Turbine powered water-scooping air tankers, and seven smaller bird-dog aircrafts.

It continued that “From time-to-time, any of these aircraft will have mechanical deficiencies that may ground them for a short period, from a few hours to a day, but there will be times where aircraft are unavailable for longer periods. This is a normal part of operating any airfleet.”

The Province says the recent grounding of several of its air tankers was the result of mandatory inspections which came due for two 215s sooner than expected. This caused them to be unavailable for five days.

The provincial government admits that several other aircrafts were not available at this time. These include one Cl215T which is out for the season due to extensive structural inspections and repairs. This has delayed the induction of one other CL215T, which is currently not available until the same inspection is completed.

Two CV580s are also grounded due to unavailable parts. One of them is anticipated to be available by the end of June. The release also indicates that there is a national shortage of qualified and experienced aircraft maintenance engineers.