Region Archives: Canada East

TORONTO – The Ontario government is investing an additional $6 million in the Provincial Forest Access Roads Funding Program to help construct and maintain forestry roads used for regional travel between communities, the transport of goods and emergency preparedness and response along with providing access routes for the tourism sector and industry. The investment will increase funding for the program to over $59 million in 2024-25. “Many people rely on this road network every day for travel between work and home and everywhere in-between,” said Graydon Smith, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. “This investment will keep people and vehicles moving safely, support efficient business operations and build safer, stronger communities.” The Provincial Forest Access Roads Funding Program provides funding for new construction and maintenance of over 19,500 kilometres of public forest access roads and other essential infrastructure. …Public forest access road infrastructure is vital to Northern, rural and Indigenous communities. 

Steven Guilbeault

GATINEAU, QC – The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, has issued the following statement in response to the measures announced today by the Government of Quebec for the Boreal and Mountain Caribou in the Gaspé Peninsula. “I would like to thank the Government of Quebec for presenting their plans before the May 1 deadline. However, several critical elements are missing, particularly the Quebec government’s August 2022 commitment to reduce the rate of disturbance in caribou habitat so that at least 65 percent of the territory for each caribou population is undisturbed. In addition, today’s announcement does not mention several caribou populations. The Government of Quebec must publish a strategy for all Boreal Caribou populations in Quebec, including immediate interim measures.”

An independent review of the fires that destroyed more than 200 homes and burned 25,000 hectares of Nova Scotia forest last year is generally positive about how the province deployed resources, but noted many areas for improvement. The Nova Scotia government paid Calian, a consulting and research firm, $45,500 to do an “after-action report” on the wildfires that started on the South Shore at Barrington Lake, and in the Halifax-area community of Tantallon. The more than 200 email responses to their survey included agencies, first responders, municipal and provincial governments, including Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff. The review highlighted a number of strengths in the province’s response to the wildfires… [and] it found gaps in a number of areas, including training and department response plans. …The review also found staffing levels were inadequate, and some of those involved in responding to the fires lacked training for the jobs they were called on to do.

More than a dozen wildfires have been reported in Ontario and the union representing forest firefighters says their crews are still short about 25 per cent of their staff. As of April 29, there have been 14 wildfires recorded in Ontario, compared to two last year. …Noah Freedman, vice president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 703 and a provincial forest fire crew leader, said the province is still missing about 25 per cent of its firefighting staff. “Ontario is supposed to have 800 firefighters, which represents 200 fire crews,” Freedman told CTV News Toronto. “The more crews we have, the more incidents people can respond to at one time. It’s not uncommon in a bad fire season to have … 12 fires in one area when you wake up in the morning.” …A spokesperson for the Minister of Natural Resources says that 630 fire crew positions have been filled and said it was “well within” their recruitment range.

Twenty-five members of Ottawa’s wildland firefighting crews have completed a special training program that certifies them to fight forest fires in an urban setting. The crews were already doing that work, but this weekend’s training has brought them up to the standard set by Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. It’s part of a provincial mandate to have all firefighters properly certified for the fires they’re tasked with fighting. The course focused on a scenario that firefighters in Ottawa would more regularly deal with: the “urban interface,” a situation where combustible forests and grasslands are close to urban developments. Tackling an urban interface fire is typically a less intensive undertaking than fighting an out-of-control forest fire, which can require crews to camp remotely for weeks at a time, said Ottawa Fire Services rural sector chief Tom Miller.

Jeff Jackson

As forest fire season draws near, volunteer fire crews in rural Newfoundland are preparing. A new proactive approach was a year in the making. Departments from Blaketown to Heart’s Content along Trinity Bay are partnering up to have clear plans in place in the event of worst-case scenarios. “It is a drill, and at the end of it we’re going to have a postmortem or a debrief of it and pick it apart and say, ‘Boys, we could have done this better’ or ‘That was a really good point’ and we can follow it from there,” said Jeff Jackson, a 39-year veteran firefighter in Whiteway. …Wildfire season in Newfoundland begins on May 1 and ends on Sept 30. In Labrador, the season begins May 15. Jackson said it’s about being in the right place — protecting the communities — while provincial fire teams battle the fires from inside forested land.

Islanders are invited to provide input on forestry priorities at upcoming public meetings across the province. Towards A New Forest Policy, a discussion paper by the Prince Edward Island Forestry Commission, outlines 13 key issues related to our forests and the forestry sector. These include the future legislative framework, government assistance to woodlot owners and the forest industry, the protection of forest ecosystems, and the need to develop more resilient forests. The public meetings will help the Commission understand more about Islanders’ forestry priorities and the issues facing PEI forests. 

KEMPTVILLE, Ontario – The Eastern Ontario Model Forest (EOMF) announced that it is expanding sustainable forestry on private lands by encouraging its members to certify to the SFI Indigenous Peoples and Families Module. The EOMF Certification Program, administered by the Ontario Woodlot Association (OWA), celebrated 20 years of certification in 2023 and is now offering the SFI module to its members. SFI Certification will complement the EOMF’s existing Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) Certificate (FSC C018800), which it is committed to maintaining. …Glen Prevost, Program Manager, EOMF, “Retaining both SFI and FSC certifications will help us grow the EOMF certification program beyond our current 74,000 hectares of certified forest.” …Executive Director of the EOMF and OWA, John Pineau, said, “The SFI community is strong and welcoming and will support our certified forests.”

The risk for forest fires in the northeast region of Ontario remains low. The Ministry of Natural Resources Forest Fire management centre reports the fire hazard is low in areas located south of Timmins and Wawa. To date, since the forest fire season opened on April 1, there has been one fire in the Northeast region. Sault Ste. Marie 2 was reported on April 16 and called out the following day. The 0.6 hectare fire was located off Mission Road in Goulais Bay, about 26 km northwest of Sault Ste. Marie. A small forest fire in Hearst – 0.4 hectares — marked the start of the season on April 11. There are no active fires in Northwestern Ontario. While some experts have said that it is expected to be a severe wildfire season, others say the season is hard to predict.  

As a bush plane pilot in northern Ontario, Joel Theriault has seen firsthand the effect herbicides have on forests in the region. “There’s something very wrong when you can see a mile in each direction and you can fly for weeks over these areas and not see a bear, and not see a wolf, and not see a moose,” he said. In the late summer and early fall, forestry companies and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry spray herbicides over wooded areas that are cultivated for their timber. “They’re spraying them to eliminate all of the competition for sunlight for the replanted conifer trees,” said Theriault. …In an email to CBC News, Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry spokesperson Marcela Mayo said herbicides are only applied to 0.2 per cent of the managed forested areas in Ontario every year.

Ontario confirms it has hired about 600 forest firefighters this year, although it has the budget to hire up to 800 people. The recruitment number is “well within the range” the province aims for, according to Natural Resources and Forestry Minister Graydon Smith. “We spent a significant amount of money, time and effort this year to recruit and retain more people and I think those efforts are paying off,” he said. Earlier in March the province rolled out an incentive program promising lump-sum payments to wildland firefighters. …Smith says “crews are deployed across Ontario as provincial resources during the fire season to where they are needed.” In other words, if a fire breaks out in the Greenstone area and there aren’t enough available crews to tackle it, resources will be sent in from other bases. 

A year and a half after post-tropical storm Fiona ripped through Prince Edward Island, some are raising questions about how to deal with the debris that remains. Provincial officials have estimated that 13 per cent of the woodland on the Island lost at least 70 per cent of its trees in the September 2022 storm. The clean-up job was massive. Crews worked for weeks to untangle a web of downed trees and power lines, while the P.E.I. government opened 41 disposal sites to its contractors and another 16 for people to drop off their Fiona debris free of charge. …It’s also wildfire season across Canada. With the weather warming up, Simpson worries the pile of drying out trees and branches could be dangerous. “Everybody else’s fire hazard has now become our fire hazard,” she said. “It’s a large pile of wood that we would really like to see gone.”

Roger Collet

Fire officials are preparing as wildfire season begins in New Brunswick, with teams and equipment situated around the province. …Tuesday was the official first day of wildfire season. Collet said the fire season begins in the southern parts of the provinces and progresses north as summer begins. Data released by the province shows that New Brunswick’s 209 wildfires last year amounted to fewer than the 10-year average of 246. However, the Stein Lake Fire near Saint Andrews in May nearly doubled the amount of land that was burned in wildfires. …Holland also spoke highly of the province’s wildfire co-ordination centre in Fredericton, which reminds him of the aircraft in the Star Trek TV series. The centre first, which first operated last year, has large screens where fire officials can monitor weather and environmental data in real time.

Ottawa-Senator Rob Black is seeking approval from the Senate for a study on the growing challenge forest fires pose to the agriculture and forestry sector as well rural and Indigenous communities. He also wants the study to examine what wildfires do to water systems, air quality, food security and biosecurity as well as the federal government is doing to adequately monitor and organize a response to wildfires. The committee should also consider possible improvements to how the federal response to wildfires compares to international best practices. …Meanwhile federal cabinet ministers released a forecast of weather trends for 2024 and talk about how Ottawa is preparing to deal with wildfires this year after last year’s wakeup call events. …The federal Government Operations Centre is the lead for federal response coordination for emergency events affecting the national interest and works in close collaboration with federal organizations, non-governmental organizations and provincial emergency management partners.

In related news: Canada shares outlook, wildfire projections & emergency preparedness

The images of millions of hectares of burned forest, thousands of people being evacuated and the smoke from Quebec fires reaching as far south as New York City brings back bad memories for Quebec’s forest fire prevention agency and communities across Quebec. “We’re going to be worried all summer,” says Guy Lafrenière, mayor of Lebel-sur-Quévillon, Que., a town located 800 kilometres north of Montreal. Lafrenière says he’s hoping for a rainy summer but fears a repeat of last year’s hot, dry weather, which forced his residents to evacuate twice. The Société de protection des forêts contre le feu (SOPFEU) is hoping to expand its ranks this year to be better prepared across Quebec by hiring 160 people including 80 firefighters in the next two years — increasing its staff by 32 per cent. A permanent SOPFEU base of operations with 14 firefighters will also be set up over the next few weeks in Lebel-sur-Quévillon.

Addressing current climate “challenges,” embracing innovation,and fostering “excellence” in landscape management, will be prime themes when Ontario foresters meet in Sault Ste. Marie later this month. ‘Forestry…Fired Up!’ is the theme of the Ontario Professional Foresters Association (OPFA) conference and annual general meeting April 16-18 at the Water Tower Inn. Prof. Alexis Achim, of Laval University, will deliver the keynote address, Don’t Give Up on (Canadian) Forests, and the conference agenda will be a mix of presentations, panel discussion, field tours and networking opportunities. Both in-person and virtual attendance options are available. The conference agenda reflects a “broad spectrum” of interests, from the transformative role of AI and drone technology in forest management to exploring new economic opportunities in wood use and addressing the “vital” task of engaging and welcoming the next generation into a profession in forestry, a release says.