DEH CHO - The Deh Cho region could be in for a summer filled with lots of forest fires, some of them large, but the weather will play a deciding factor.

A fire near Harris Creek, across the Mackenzie River from Fort Simpson, was one of 12 forest fires in the Deh Cho region in 2009. In contrast the region had only seven forest fires in 2010, a record low number. - photo courtesy of Department of Environment and Natural Resources

At least one early indicator is pointing towards a busy forest fire season. The winter snowpack is one of the factors that is monitored, said Frank Lepine, the

manager of fire operations with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

During the winter most of the region received only 80 per cent of its normal snowpack. In Fort Simpson the readings were normal.

If this is followed up by lower than normal amounts of rain the region could be in a drought situation by mid-July, which is the worst part of the fire season, Lepine said. The result could be smouldering, long-term fires that are difficult to deal with caused by lightning strikes that bury themselves in peat moss and take hold, he said.

It would be a very different scenario then last year.

In 2010 the Deh Cho region, which doesn't include Fort Providence or Kakisa, had only seven forest fires, the lowest number on record for the region since 1975. This was partially because the region had rain almost every second day, Lepine said.

In the last 10 years the Deh Cho had an average of 41 fires per year. In the early 1980s the region had more than 100 fires a year.

It's difficult to make an accurate prediction about what the fire season will be like until the spring rainfall is observed, said Lepine.

"It's all weather-dependent," he said.

At this point a lightning-caused forest fire could take hold almost anywhere in the territory, said Lepine. As of May 20, Wrigley and the western portion of the Horn Plateau had a high forest fire hazard rating. People on the land should be cautious with their fires, he said.

"It's easy to get a forest fire going this time of year and it could be pretty disastrous, too," said Lepine.

Conditions in other parts of the territory have already led to precautionary measures. Thirteen fire crews, including one each from Fort Liard and Fort Simpson, as well as four tanker groups and four helicopters were brought on one to two weeks early in response to conditions in the South Slave.

The South Slave has had the same weather as northern Alberta including record high temperatures and high winds. There was also a possibility of dry lightning strikes. As of May 20 conditions were lessening but a core readiness still has to be maintained, Lepine said.

The Slave Lake, Alta., fire is fresh in people's minds, he said. About a third of the northern Alberta community was destroyed by a wildfire on May 15.

"It's unfortunate it happened to those people," said Lepine. "It could happen to any of us. We have to be really careful, we have to be vigilant,"

Steps have been taken in the territory to help protect communities from the possibility of forest fires and wildfires.

Over the past few years the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has been working with communities to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans. To create the plans, a consultant assesses a community's risk from wildfires, said Larry Nixon, the wildfire risk management co-ordinator with the department.

The plans list potential risks and give recommendations on how to address them, he said. The plans are designed to help communities make decisions on which areas are the most critical to address and to develop funding applications to assist in implementing recommendations.

In the winter the department used funding from a federal stimulus package and contribution agreements with communities to implement one of the recommendations. Every Deh Cho community had a thinning project.

The projects included removing lower branches from trees surrounding the community to prevent fires from climbing the trees.

The spacing of trees was also thinned to help prevent crown fires that are harder to fight.

Measures like these do help reduce the risk from fires but doesn't eliminate it, Nixon said.

Only by removing all the flammable material within approximately one kilometre of a community would all the risks be gone, he said. People in Canada, however, like to live close to nature.

"You have to strike a balance between living out there and reducing the risk of fire," Nixon said.

Communities are now being encouraged to access funding sources on their own in order to implement more of the plans' recommendations.

Homeowners can also help by reducing the risks to their own properties, Nixon said.

The only silver lining to the destruction in Slave Lake is that it showed people the risk of forest fires has to be taken seriously, he said.

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