Wildfire danger set to continue into September, officials say

This fire season marks the fourth year in a row that more than four million hectares have burned in wildfires across Canada – the first time that’s happened in recorded history, federal experts say.

Officials provided the figures during a national wildfire update on Tuesday.

“Very dry conditions in parts of British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, combined with large fires in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec, were driving substantial growth in both fire activity and total area burned,” said Yan Boulanger, a researcher at Natural Resources Canada.

More than a quarter of the total area burned – 1.4 million hectares – was in the NWT, Boulanger said.

“The increasing potential for wildfires in Canada is undeniably symptomatic of the changing climate,” said Boulanger.

Alexandre Parent, a meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said temperatures in the eastern part of the NWT over the past month were above average for the time of year.

He said in July, lower-than-normal precipitation was recorded across the country, with the greatest deficits in northern Ontario, the BC interior and the NWT.

For the rest of August, lower precipitation than normal is predicted across the NWT as well as in Manitoba and northern Ontario, said Parent.

This, he says, will result in conditions favourable to wildfires in the NWT through to the end of August. More than 200 fires are actively burning in the territory.

In September, fire danger is expected to be higher than normal across most of Canada, with the exception of Alberta and Saskatchewan, a press release also issued on Tuesday stated.

“In northern areas, however, fire danger is usually low at this time of year. This means that while conditions may be above normal, large fires and significant fire growth are not necessarily expected,” the press release stated.

Exploring new aircraft

During Tuesday’s update, federal emergency management minister Eleanor Olszewski said Ottawa is evaluating its current fleet of wildfire suppression aircraft to determine if additional resources may be required as fires become more taxing to tackle.

“We’ll be taking a hard look in conjunction with provinces and territories to determine what the best path forward is,” said Olszewski.

She said the types of aircraft that might be needed would also be evaluated.

“There are water bombers. Sometimes, heavy-lift helicopters are better in some situations. There’s an importance to having the right mix,” said Olszewski, adding a decision is likely to be made by the end of the year.

“We’ll be making a decision with respect to leased aircraft quite quickly because we will want those to be in place for the next wildfire season,” said Olszewski.

“Placing aircraft orders is another story in terms of when that type of craft might be available. That’s more medium-term planning, as opposed to what we would be able to put in place for next year.”