Experts: Bad start to fire season might not mean bad finish

VANCOUVER — The dramatic start to this year’s fire season across Western Canada and Ontario doesn’t necessarily mean the ferocious trend will continue into the summer, experts say.

John Innes, dean of forestry at the University of British Columbia, said weather is the single largest influence on wildfires, which makes forecasting extremely challenging.

“It’s always very difficult with weather and with climate,” Innes said in an interview on Monday.

“We hear about what’s going to happen next week and it can be totally wrong. The same goes for fire weather.”

While visiting an evacuation centre in Edmonton more than a week ago, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the intense and early start to wildfires this year could spell a long and difficult season for all of Canada. He specified his remarks were not directed exclusively at Alberta, where the province is still reeling from the firestorm in Fort McMurray.

Innes said so far, 2016 has been the most destructive fire season in recorded Canadian history, surpassing the damage done in 2011 when another northern Alberta fire destroyed part of the community of Slave Lake.

Natural Resources Canada reported that as of May 11, 1,429 fires had flared up across the country this season, compared with a 10-year-average of 1,070. The fires had burned through more than 4,200 square kilometres, which is 41 times the 10-year average.

“Things can change pretty well overnight,” Innes said about fire conditions.

“It makes it very, very difficult to forecast what’s going to happen out in July or August.”

Kerry Anderson, a fire-research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, agreed that an early start to the fire season doesn’t indicate increased risk down the road.

“Fire seasons vary dramatically from year to year,” he said.

The cycle of El Niño and La Niña weather systems is the strongest tool for forecasting wildfires, Anderson said, adding that the pending arrival of La Niña’s cooler, more moist conditions in the coming months will likely quell some of the wildfires and bring the fire danger down to a manageable level.

Claire Allen of the B.C. Wildfire Service said the biggest determinant of the latter portion of the fire season on the West Coast is the amount of rain that falls in June.

In B.C. so far, 265 fires have burned about 825 square kilometres of land, an increase in the 10-year average.

The remainder of the fire season is still up in the air, Allen said: “It’s kind of anyone’s guess at this point.”