SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The forest fire season in the NWT has almost failed to show up this year.

There have been some fires, said Judy McLinton, the communications manager with Department of Environment and Natural Resources, "But they've been very small."

As of July 31, there have been only 26 wildland fires in the NWT this season, outside of national parks.

Those 26 fires have burned a total of 832 hectares, McLinton said. "It's not a lot."

The 10-year averages to 2008 are 196 wildland fires and 253,051 hectares burned during the five-month fire season, which officially begins May 1 and ends Sept. 30.

Only six of this season's fires are still being monitored.McLinton said the rainy and cool spring and summer can be credited with preventing more fires so far this year.

"It hasn't been a big fire year, except for B.C. and the Yukon," she said.

With the relative lack of forest fires in the NWT, some of the territorial government's resources and people - either GNWT employees or contractors - have been sent to help out in other jurisdictions under resource-sharing agreements.

A CL-215 tanker group from the NWT has been in Alaska for two weeks and will be there for another two weeks. The tanker group consists of two CL-215 water bombers and a bird dog aircraft.

The tanker group is operated by Buffalo Airways under contract with the GNWT.

Seven management personnel - four incident commanders, two safety officers and one fire behaviour analyst - were sent to British Columbia late last week.

On July 31, three dozen people were sent to the Yukon, including supervisors, a fire behaviour analyst and six five-person ground crews.