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Fire season normal so far Paul Bickford Northern News Services Published Monday, July 2, 2012
As of that date, there had been a total of 80 fires this year in the NWT, outside of national parks. "We're pretty much about the normal number of fires at this time," said Richard Olsen, the territorial duty officer with the Forest Management Division of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Fort Smith. There are usually between 80 to 90 fires expected by this time of year. "There are 54 fires burning," said Olsen, noting all but 10 fires had started in the previous week. None of the fires were threatening communities. "The largest fire of concern would be one up near Deline and it's just being monitored right now," said Olsen, noting the 8,000-hectare fire is about 12 km from the community and has been moving away. The largest fire burning last week covered around 9,000 hectares just south of Great Bear Lake in the Hottah Lake area, about 70 km north of Gameti. As of June 28, only one fire 10 km northeast of Inuvik was being auctioned, while limited action was about to be taken against a Behchoko area fire, which had been burning for several weeks. Olsen noted a large majority of the fires are in the mountains, while the others are in various other areas of the NWT. The fire hazard was low to moderate in most of the southern regions, high to extreme in the Sahtu and moderate to high in the Inuvik region. "Most of the regions experienced rain and most of the fires are really quiet, and I suspect will be burning themselves out eventually," Olsen said. The total area burned as of June 28 was 57,044 hectares. No fires were burning in Nahanni National Park Reserve or in the NWT section of Wood Buffalo National Park.
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