B.C., Yukon at highest risk for wildfires this season
B.C., Yukon most vulnerable to forest fires this summer
Canada’s West Coast is the region most vulnerable to forest fires this year, according to spring predictions from the Canadian Forest Service.
Using computer modelling that looks at precipitation, drought and long-term weather forecasts, B.C. and Yukon will have conditions most hospitable to wildfires this spring and summer, researchers at the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton said Wednesday morning.
Although the scientists can predict which areas would be conducive to fire, exactly where lightning or humans might spark a blaze is anyone’s guess.
“Even during average years, bad fires can happen if they happen in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Bruce Macnab, head of the Wildland Fire Information Systems with Natural Resources Canada.
Compared to recent years, fire severity predictions for May show a wider swath of blue (low danger) across Canada, said Richard Carr, wildland fire research analyst.
The researchers showed off maps and tools posted on the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, which are regularly updated and include both predictions for this wildfire season and historical fire information.
The current forecast foresees above-average fire severity in most of B.C. and Yukon beginning in June, with the danger zone expanding across the Prairies by September.
The predictions should become more accurate as summer approaches, Carr said.
Although wildfires have long been a natural phenomenon in Canadian forests, their characteristics are changing as the climate does, said Ellen Whitman, a fire research assistant.
As spring and autumn extends, forest fire season begins earlier and lasts longer than it did decades ago, she said.
The number of fires ignited yearly and the size of forest they consume is also growing, she said. Researchers also think climate change is prompting a rising number of lightning strikes, which start about half of forest fires.
Although people start the other half of wildfires in Canada, citizens are becoming mindful of preventing them, she said.
The number of fires is increasing across the country, and the West is disproportionately affected because the mix of plant species in the forests of Western Canada is more susceptible to fire, Whitman said.
As wildfire is more likely in northern and remote areas, Indigenous people are disproportionately affected by fire evacuation orders, said Amy Cardinal Christianson, a fire social scientist who studies the phenomenon.
There were 23 active wildfires in Alberta as of Wednesday afternoon, according to Alberta Wildfire data.
Firefighters in B.C. are currently battling an out-of-control wildfire near Osoyoos in the southern part of that province.