Drought persists
'Two or three inches' needed to restore water table, says ENR spokesperson
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Monday, June 29, 2015
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
The territory is still parched despite receiving some rainfall over the past couple of weeks, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
A forest fire burns near Jean Marie River July 29 of last year. Seventy-five fires have been reported across the territory this season. Tyrone Sanguez took this photo just before voluntarily evacuating the town as a fire burned across the Mackenzie River from the small community. - photo courtesy of Tyrone Sanguez |
The precipitation wasn't enough to bring the water table back to a normal level, according to Richard Olsen, manager of fire operations for the forest management division of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
During a conference call updating the status of wild fires in the NWT June 23, Olsen said the driest part of the territory is around Fort Providence and drought levels are spiking in Fort Smith as well.
"That is almost something we'd expect to see in July or even the end of August," said Olsen, adding there's no hope the coming precipitation will remedy the situation.
"Two or three inches (of rain) would be just enough toward setting us back towards normal (water levels)."
In Fort Providence, said Olsen, the drought code, which is a way of measuring moisture levels in the
ground, is going to set
records.
He described the conditions as "very, very dry."
On June 27, the Department of Transportation closed Highway 3 due to heavy smoke from Behchoko to Fort Providence, but it was open as of press time. Highway 6 was closed June 26, but was not open as of press time.
A total of 75 wild fires have burned in the territory so far, slightly more than the 63 fires that had been reported by this time in 2014. Fifty-two of those blazes are still burning, said Olsen. A little less than 1,410 square kilometres have burned so far, compared to last year's 165,000 hectares by this time, he said.
"We're a little bit more in terms of fires burning from 2014 ... Slightly less in terms of area burned."
Ten of the fires are hold-over fires - meaning they started last year and have been reignited.
Two of these fires are burning coal deposits smouldering underground, eight fires were caused by people and the remaining 53 fires were ignited by lightning strikes, said Olsen.
"We are expecting the conditions exist again for another series of fire occurrences towards the weekend," he said, adding additional air tankers and fire crews were scheduled to join ENR's firefighting team in anticipation of hot and dry weather.
"Working directly on fire right now we likely have around 45 individuals, which is adequate for the response that we're dealing with right now."
A medium-sized aircraft was expected to be brought in to add to the regular airborne fleet of five intermediate aircraft, said Olsen.
They have a land-based Douglas DC4 tanker, and four CL215 water bombers, he said.
