Lightning ignites hay bale as storm hits Westman

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This article was published 04/07/2025 (185 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A storm chaser discovered a flaming hay bale on Thursday night while following a lightning storm that blanketed parts of Westman.

Storm chaser Braydon Morisseau was in the RM of Pipestone, pursuing a tornado-watch storm that filled the sky with cracking thunder. He told the Sun that wind was ripping when he and his friend followed a light source of flames to the field where a bale was engulfed in fire.

“We figured, with the amount of lightning that there was, these cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, that it was probably caused by a lightning strike,” he told the Sun in a phone interview Friday.

“We sat there for a little bit, and we pondered if we should phone 911, to try to get it out. The rain was kind of tapering off at that point, and we were worried it would spread to the field.”

The Rural Municipality of Pipestone fire department received a report just after 10 p.m. and spent an hour and a half dousing the bale, Chief Lane Wanless told the Sun. He agreed that the cause of the fire was a lightning strike.

It was Day 2 of a road trip from Morriseau’s home town of Cochrane, Alta., when he came across the fire. He travelled to eastern Saskatchewan for the tornado warning and followed the storm to Westman.

Finding the fire was unexpected. But at the same time, it’s par for the course, he said, because chasing is about the surprises.

“Every moment that we’re chasing will never be the same again,” he said. “That’s the special thing.”

Under drier conditions, it is common to see hay bales ignite the ground beneath them, growing a fire through fields after a lightning strike,Wanless said. Luckily, there were showers that night that dampened the field and helped contain the flames.

“If the rain hadn’t come with the lightning, or soon after, it would have spread,” he said, adding that he was not personally on scene for the response. “The rain prevented it from spreading.”

Describing the atmosphere in Pipestone, Wanless said things looked bad.

“It was pretty eerie,” he said. “The clouds were a green-grey colour.”

Southwest Manitoba was hit with significant rainfall on Thursday, with numerous areas receiving between 40 and 60 millimetres, Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor told the Sun.

There was no confirmation of a tornado touching down, though a warning was issued for Saskatchewan.

The weather was considered significant and severe by Environment and Climate Change Canada. Hail the size of tennis balls was reported near Flin Flon, and hail the size of ping-pong balls was reported in Manor, Sask.

Winds reached up to 115 kilometres an hour in parts of Westman.

No information was available as of early Friday afternoon about damage caused by the storm. Proctor said the agency is welcoming information that can be reported at storm@ec.gc.ca.

Proctor said this weekend’s weather is expected to be a return to normal. He said the forecast calls for a cooling off to 25 C today and 23 C on Sunday, with a chance of rainfall coming on Monday.

The storm season in Canada has been active since June, Morisseau said. He has put 35,000 kilometres on his vehicle since May 16, driving to the United States and back, seeing a tornado for every 1,200 kilometres travelled.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com