Niño leaves West dry
VANCOUVER — Experts are blaming El Niño for speeding up nature’s clock and forcing firefighters to deploy weeks ahead of normal to battle wildfires across rural Western Canada.
They say the natural phenomenon that cycles every two to seven years has been activated early this year and is predicted to accelerate wildfire activity across the northwest.
The tinderbox effect will be felt from Oregon to B.C. and across the northern Prairies into Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
“From a wildfire perspective, it does create a greater wildfire hazard in this region, and even further north, because of that lack of precipitation,” said geography Prof. Ian McKendry, with the University of British Columbia.
Firefighters have already been dispatched to scores of fires in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan. Nearly 5,000 Albertans were evacuated earlier this week from their homes around Wabasca, more than 300 kilometres north of Edmonton. All evacuation orders had been lifted by Wednesday, allowing residents to return to their homes.
An unusually large wildfire for this time of year raged for two weeks south of Prince George, before it was fully contained earlier this week.
A fire nearly 20 square kilometres in size was burning northwest of La Loche and Garson, Sask.
While El Niño has kicked off the wildfire season early, forecasters say it also has the potential to develop in strength. The phenomenon involves a reversal of winds and currents that moves warm waters across the Pacific, altering the atmosphere to change weather patterns.
Rather than create above-average temperatures, however, El Niño tends to reduce precipitation, said Kerry Anderson, a fire research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service. Snowfall also melted weeks to a month ahead of schedule because of El Niño, he said.
“There are perhaps two dozen global models, they’re all more or less in consensus that an El Niño event is kicking in,” he said.