Rain douses a number of fires
Meagan Leonard
Northern News Services
Friday, June 5, 2015
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Rainfall on over the course of last week has helped ease the forest fire situation, as the fire count has decreased from 51 to 38 as of June 1.
Two caterpillar bulldozers had to be left behind when a forest fire near Fort Providence got too close for the fire-crews operating them last July. - photo courtesy of Earl Evans |
These fires have burned 959 square kilometres.
However, the territory remains well above the 20-year average for this time of year, which is seven fires and 50 square kilometres burned.
Richard Olsen, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources manger of fire operations, said no communities are currently at risk during a press briefing Monday afternoon.
Fort Smith fire operations manager Frank Lepine says this year's severe season is likely due to a long-term drought the territory continues to face.
"We're probably into year three of the drought ... affecting the North Slave, South Slave and Deh Cho regions," he said.
"Because of that ... fires will burn deep and a fire that would normally take a crew a day or two to put out will take longer."
At this point no external fire crews have had to be brought into the territory, but most of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' fire-fighting stock has been employed at this point, supplemented with extra community firefighters, Olsen said.
Olsen added he expects the blazes to build again once dry winds and warm temperatures make their way back into the territory. A lot more rain would be needed to make any significant change, he said.
"Really, for anything to get to the really deep layers, we'd probably have to see an inch or two of rain - that's what will really make a difference, 25 millimetres or more," he said.
To put that into perspective, a rain shower on June 1 in Yellowknife accumulated a total of 3.4 millimetres of precipitation.
Olsen said department officials are carefully watching a large fire 90 km north of Fort Simpson that has the potential to damage cabins, homesteads and grave sites.
"No communities are being threatened at this time and the majority of the work in the other ones is limited to cabins and individual structures on the land," he said, adding they are now, in addition to Highway 3, monitoring a portion of Highway 1 east of Jean Marie River as large fires in that area also begin to be a concern.
