
What we can learn from Canada's record wildfire season, as a new one approaches
CBC
Fire crews across much of Canada are already on high alert for the coming wildfire season, only months after the conclusion of the worst season on record.
Quebec's fire monitoring agency, SOPFEU, issued a warning for some parts of the province last week, the earliest in its history.
"It's going to get dry very quickly, so it's going to become very, very easy to start a fire," said Philippe Bergeron, a spokesperson for the agency based in Quebec City.
"We have an early spring that is coming, a mild end of this winter and the snow cover that is disappearing faster than usual."
Alberta also declared last month that its wildfire season had started, 10 days early, and B.C. issued a notice saying it was monitoring holdover fires from last year.
The B.C. Wildfire Service has since announced a number of prescribed burns, in an attempt to reduce dried vegetation and protect communities against wildfires.
More than 100 fires are still burning in B.C. and Alberta after unusually dry conditions in both provinces.
The federal government recently set aside up to $285 million over five years to help communities better handle wildfires, and is also aiming to hire 1,000 more firefighters.
The warnings about the upcoming season come as researchers take stock of last year's historic wildfires, and analyze what can be done differently.
Although the number of fires wasn't unusual compared to other years, their average size was far larger.
Approximately 15 million hectares burned, over seven times the historic national annual average.
"'Record-breaking' is almost a euphemism. I mean, it really shattered past records," said Marc-André Parisien, an Edmonton-based research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, part of Natural Resources Canada.
Last year's season "challenged what we thought we understood about wildland fire," he said.
Parisien said the precipitating factors included early snowmelt, drought conditions in Western Canada and a rapid transition to dry weather in Eastern Canada.