It seems the forest fire season is already upon Canada, weeks earlier than usual.
2014 was considered the worst wildfire season in Canada’s boreal forest area of the Northwest Territores. (NT), as well as in the province of Alberta, and across much of Canada where the number of fires and area burned was either at or close to historical records.
Late last year, the British Columbia Ministry of Forests. Lands and Natural Resources said there is an increasing risk of “mega fires” due to climate change which has also enabled an explosion in mountain pine beetles and tree deaths. This in turn leaves forests full of dead dry trees. Climatologist also say that warming air means more energy leading to a greater number of more violent storms and thus fire-starting lighting strikes.
- “In the Southern Interior fire size is expected to double, from an average of 7,961 hectares to 19,076 hectares
- Summer fire severity will go up 95 per cent
- The fire season will lengthen by 30 per cent
- Fire frequency will increase by 30 per cent.
- Annual area burned is also predicted to increase by 50 per cent to 300 per cent in the boreal forest.
- By 2017, it is estimated that there will be 787.8 million cubic metres of pine that have been killed in the province by beetles, creating a huge fuel source for fires.
In March, reports already stressed concerns about the low snowpack and that in many areas large tracts of already dried out grasses and shrubs were exposed.
Released last week the Northwest Territories Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) report said last year there were a record 385 fires which burned about 3.4 million hectares of forest resource and cost over $56 million.
On their website the territory’s ENR says that drought conditions already exist with severe risk conditions existing throughout much of the southeastern portion of the territory.
Daniel Allaire, a manager with ENR was quoted in the Northern News Service said in an average year, about 900,000 hectares is burned but last year was, “… like 350 per cent over our average.”
In February of this year, the Minister Michael Miltenberger said that the 2015 season is likely to pick up where the record fire season last year left off. Quoted in the Northern Journal, he said, “The unfortunate reality for us is that all the indicators are, at this point – and anybody who walks out in the bush will see – there’s not a lot of snow, and there wasn’t any fall rain to speak of”.
Further east in Ontario for example, there have been, or are currently burning, a total of 121 forest fires with 494 hectares of forest burnt so far.
According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre Inc. website there have been a total of 7,500 hectares of forest burned in 943 fires in provinces across Canada.
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