TORONTO – Fire season is just getting started, but already the country has seen twice the number of forest fires compared to last year.
To date, 2,549 fires had ignited across 263,201 hectares of forest. Compare that to the same time last year: there were only 1,195 fires that had burned just 25,866 hectares.
According to Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Wildland Fire Information System update, “Nationally, the number of fires and the area burned have increased dramatically from last week, and are now well above average for this time of year.”
Lightning is responsible for igniting about 36 per cent of the fires. But the unseasonably warm weather is creating conditions favourable to fire development.
The fire danger is expected to remain high for the next week, particularly in the west where it is expected to remain “very high.”
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Open fires have been restricted in parts of British Columbia, including the Coastal, Prince George, Kamloops, Southeast and Cariboo fire zones. A province-wide fire ban has been issued in Alberta, while open fires and fireworks have been banned in all provincial forests in Saskatchewan. Manitoba has cancelled all burning permits in the northwest region.
In Central and eastern Canada the danger is low to moderate.
More than 205 people, 100 power pumps, five aircraft and 91 km of hosing are being used to battle the blazes across the country.
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