Fire season burns itself out
Smaller, shorter season sees significantly less burnage than 2015
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, September 8, 2016
DEH CHO
Although fire crews in the Deh Cho are still monitoring a handful of fires in the region, the season is winding down for the summer.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources' NWTfire map shows numerous active fires still burning in the Deh Cho and South Slave. The website says there are currently 14 active fires in the Deh Cho but fire danger is down across the board for Deh Cho communities. - photo courtesy of Environment and Natural Resources
|
The area burned this year amount to about one-seventh of what was burned in 2015.
Fire numbers were also down in the region by about a third.
"We had some greater fire behaviour intensities last year . We had 178,743 (hectares burned) compared to 25,870 this year," said Brendan Tsetso, forest officer for the Deh Cho region of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
"Last year, we had 83 fires; this year we had 57. The fires we had were smaller and we were able to contain them quicker."
Other factors contributing to an easier fire season were wetter conditions and more winter precipitation than the previous year.
50 extra firefighters hired
Tsetso said over the course of the season the regional department had approximately 50 extra firefighters and 38 members on its seasonal and government crews.
They started training nearly a month earlier than normal to prepare in case the season turned out to rival 2015's in intensity.
"We just wanted to be ready," Tsesto said.
Few direct threats to communities
Although some fires started close to population centres, the department avoided having to deal with any fires posing direct threats to the Deh Cho's communities. Over the course of the season, community members could see where fires were burning by accessing the department's fire map on its NWT Fire website.
"We had a variety of pop-ups mid-summer around communities . Those ones were high-priority fires and we got crews on them right away," Tsetso said.
"There was a day when we started getting fires later in the day, around 6 or 7 p.m., and people kept calling them in. We had water bombers coming in to help out with operations and they were calling in fires as they were coming."
Aside from that, one of the major fires crews tackled this season flared up at Cli Lake at the beginning of the season. That one required a few crews as well as numerous extra firefighters, more than 20 firefighters in total, but died down as weather fluctuated.
"We had some rain and moisture at the end of that fire, so that helped out," Tsetso said.
When they found the time, some crew members worked away at brushing in the Wildrose subdivision of Fort Simpson, which Tsetso said was part of the department's effort to promote its FireSmart initiative.
The department is still monitoring 10 fires.
