Category Archives: Forest Fires

FORT NELSON, B.C. — Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM) Mayor Rob Fraser says some rain fell on and around Fort Nelson on Wednesday, helping firefighters battle the Parker Lake wildfire. “We got 9.8 millimetres of rain last night, and it’s helped the situation a lot,” Fraser says. “The fire is being held in place and is somewhat suppressed right now.” “It was not much more than what you’d expect from a garden hose and a sprinkler, so it will help with the fire, but it will not extinguish the fire.” According to Environment Canada, more showers along with wet flurries are in the forecast for Fort Nelson Thursday, including up to 10 millimetres of rain in southern areas. Sarah Hall, an information officer with the BC Wildfire Service, says the reported size of the fire is larger than before but that the difference is mostly down to “more accurate mapping” of the blaze.

Ian Langstaff

FORT NELSON, BC —  an evacuation order for residents in the small British Columbia town of Fort Nelson since Friday, Ian Langstaff is staying put. “I’m hoping to help save our town,” the mechanic and business owner told the Star. The community is preparing for two out-of-control wildfires. …Langstaff contended the community has a “very robust industrial sector” that could help fight the fire, but feels it has been widely disregarded. …The mayor said the municipality’s emergency operations centre called as many people as they had numbers for — convincing some to leave. There are still plenty of essential staff in town, he said. …Fraser has urged residents not to return to their homes and said emergency crews need to focus on their work rather than looking out for residents heading into harm’s way.

A wildfire that forced more than 6,600 people from their homes in Fort McMurray continues to grow, threatening a northeastern Alberta community that was ravaged by fire eight years ago. Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods — Beacon Hill, Abasand, Prairie Creek and Grayling Terrace — were evacuated Tuesday as a wildfire grew dangerously close. Evacuees are being told they will likely remain out their homes for at least another week, possibly longer. As of Wednesday morning, the fire had consumed nearly 21,000 hectares of forest, after almost doubling in size the day before, and moved closer to the community as it spread rapidly toward the northwest. After days of volatile fire activity, a favourable change in the weather is expected Wednesday with cooler temperatures and weaker winds that are expected to push the fire away from homes and businesses. 

A low-pressure system moving into northern British Columbia is expected to dampen wildfire activity that has forced several thousand people to flee their homes in and around Fort Nelson, the BC Wildfire Service says. Fire officials said Wednesday that cooler temperatures in the low teens along with higher humidity should reduce the likelihood of intense fire activity. There’s also potential for light rain, which would further lower the risk of the fire spreading closer to the town of about 4,700 residents who were put under an evacuation order on Friday. …The BC Wildfire Service had said early on Wednesday that there was potential for gusty winds to fan “aggressive” fire behaviour in the area. But the latest report says overall conditions are favourable for firefighting, with 19 helicopters and 88 wildfire service personnel assigned to the blaze in addition to municipal firefighters from the region.

ALBERTA — A large wildfire is slowly approaching the major Canadian oil sands city of Fort McMurray and around 6,000 people in four suburbs have been told to evacuate, local officials said on Tuesday. The fire, fueled by tinder-dry conditions and high winds, has been threatening the city in the western province of Alberta since last week. It is now about 7.5 km away from the Fort McMurray landfill, authorities said in an update. They also expressed hope that a favorable wind shift was expected Tuesday night, which could lead to winds from the west-northwest pushing the fire away from Fort McMurray. In addition to the harm that may befall people and property, the fire puts a large portion of Canada’s oil production at risk. …Alberta Wildfire Information Officer Josee St-Onge earlier said the blaze grew significantly on Tuesday and noted winds from the southwest were gusting as high as 40 km per hour.

Wab Kinew

Premier Wab Kinew toured areas near an out-of-control wildfire in northwestern Manitoba on Tuesday. The fire, discovered Thursday just north of Cranberry Portage and east of Flin Flon, is believed to have been started by lightning strikes. It was intensified by high winds and extremely dry conditions over the weekend, forcing the community of Cranberry Portage to be evacuated. In a Tuesday afternoon update, the province said the fire was about 31,600 hectares in size and about 1½ kilometres from Cranberry Portage. Kinew visited Bakers Narrows, Flin Flon and The Pas and got a look at from above during a helicopter ride. …The wildfire is not yet threatening Flin Flon, but the telecommunications system has been severed, cutting cell phone service and internet access. The city has created a patchwork of communications using the Starlink satellite system to access the internet as much as possible.

Thousands of Fort McMurray residents headed south to safety as a large out-of-control wildfire drew closer to their community, but many are worried they won’t have a home to return to. An evacuation order was issued Tuesday afternoon for the neighbourhoods of Beacon Hill, Abasand, Prairie Creek and Grayling Terrace, as the wildfire southwest of the community continues to grow. Other areas in Fort McMurray remain on evacuation alert and residents need to be ready to leave on short notice. …As of Tuesday night, the wildfire threatening the community has covered nearly 21,000 hectares as shifting winds and rising temperatures continue accelerating its growth and pushing the flames closer to the community. All residents in the evacuation zone were ordered to leave by 4 p.m. MT. …For some Fort McMurray residents, having to leave home due to the threat of wildfire is a familiar and bitter experience.

The evacuated northeast B.C. municipality of Fort Nelson is bracing for strong, persistent westerly winds Monday that could push the rampaging Parker Lake wildfire closer to town. About 4,700 people have been told to evacuate in Fort Nelson and Fort Nelson First Nations, due to the fast-growing fire burning about 2½ kilometres northwest of city limits. “The next 48 hours will be a challenging situation for the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality given forecast ongoing westerly winds and extremely dry and volatile fuels in the area,” said Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma in a news conference on Monday. “We may begin to see volatile wildfire activity later this afternoon.” …Crews are also using heavy equipment and putting in fire guards to slow the spread of the fire. Strong winds expected overnight did not materialize, and the size of the fire held steady into Monday, he noted. 

Related coverage in Business in Vancouver by the Associated Press: Some people stay as blaze with ‘extreme fire behaviour’ singes Fort Nelson, B.C.

A wildfire that’s threatening the northwestern Manitoba community of Cranberry Portage hasn’t gotten bigger, but first responders could still be fighting it weeks from now, a provincial wildfire official said. The entire population of Cranberry Portage evacuated Saturday as a massive blaze marched toward the community, devouring trees on thousands of hectares of land. Earl Simmons, the director of the Manitoba Wildfire Service, said the fire hasn’t moved or gotten smaller. Though the province said Sunday it was about 35,000 hectares in size, it is actually about 31,500 hectares (or 77,838 acres), after subtracting the space that bodies of water take up. …”We could be fighting that fire a month from now,” Simmons told reporters outside his department’s office on Monday afternoon. …In his 40 years of experience with wildfires, Simmons has “never seen a fire move like this fire moved,” thanks to high winds and extremely dry conditions in the area.

FORT NELSON, British Columbia — An intense wildfire could reach a town in western Canada this week, fire experts and officials warned, based on forecasts of winds that have fueled the out-of-control blaze, which has forced the evacuation of thousands of people. The British Columbia Wildfire Service said the wildfire was burning 2½ kilometers (around 1½ miles) northwest of Fort Nelson. More than 4,700 people have evacuated after an order was issued on Friday. …Cliff Chapman, the service’s director of operations, said they were fortunate that stronger winds didn’t materialize overnight, but said that winds were expected to continue to blow west over the next day or two. …Fire crews and emergency workers were preparing for a “last stand” if the fire advances into the town, said Rob Fraser, mayor of the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality based in Fort Nelson.

The wildfire burning southwest of Fort McMurray grew west and northeast on Monday. …The last update on the wildfire, which is being called MWF-017, was that it was 6,572 hectares and 16 kilometres southwest of the city as of 9:30 a.m. The cause is still being investigated. Two helicopters equipped with night vision will battle the wildfire overnight with their water buckets. Alberta Wildfire spokesperson Christie Tucker hopes scattered showers, and cooler and wetter overnight conditions will slow the wildfire. An evacuation warning is still active for people in Fort McMurray, Anzac, Fort McMurray 468 First Nation, Gregoire Lake Estates, Saprae Creek Estates and Rickards Landing Industrial Park. …Wildfire conditions in most of Alberta’s north range from high to extreme risk. Tucker says there are 45 wildfires burning across the province. Between Friday morning and Sunday evening, 18 new wildfires sparked across Alberta.

More than 3,000 people were ordered to leave their homes Friday as a fast-growing wildfire advanced toward the community of Fort Nelson, part of the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality in northeast B.C, prompting an evacuation for the entire community as well as the neighbouring Fort Nelson First Nation. The Parker Lake fire was about half a square kilometre in size at 5:25 p.m. MT Friday, but quickly grew to four square kilometres an hour later. By 9 a.m. MT on Saturday, it had quadrupled in size to 16.9 square kilometres. Fort Nelson uses mountain time year-round. The service said at 10 p.m. MT the fire was 12 kilometres west of Fort Nelson, located near the border with Yukon, about 1,600 kilometres northeast of Vancouver and 500 kilometres north of Prince George. It was fuelled by ongoing dry conditions in the region as well as strong winds, which were forecast to gust as high as 70 kilometres an hour.

Additional coverage in the Vancouver Sun, by Chuck Chiang (Canadian Press): Fort Nelson braces for ‘last stand’ as high winds expected to push wildfire toward town

An evacuation alert has been issued for Fort McMurray, Alberta, as an out-of-control fire rages southwest of town, making it among the first actions ahead of the wildfire season. In a notice late on Friday, the Alberta government said the wildfire danger is “extreme” in the Fort McMurray Forest Area and out of control at 1,000 hectares in size. It said strong winds are expected on Saturday, as a cold front continues to pass over the region. Helicopter pilots using night vision equipment surveilled the wildfire area overnight. …Residents in Saprea Creek Estates are also placed on alert from the municipality of Wood Buffalo. In British Columbia, the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality issued an evacuation order for the town of Fort Nelson. The federal government has warned Canada faces another “catastrophic” wildfire season with higher-than-normal spring and summer temperatures across much of the country, boosted by El Nino weather conditions.

A massive wildfire in Manitoba, 38 kilometres long and 12 kilometres wide, has swallowed up thousands of hectares of land near Flin Flon, and is making its way toward Cranberry Portage, the province said in its fourth fire bulletin on Sunday afternoon. Residents from Cranberry Portage evacuated to The Pas after an order was issued Saturday night. The blaze was first detected on Thursday and is deemed out-of-control on the province’s wildfire map. It has grown to about 35,000 hectares thanks to high winds and drought conditions, up from the about 3,000 hectares reported as of Saturday afternoon. …Another out-of-control fire near the community of Wanless, which is north of The Pas but south of Cranberry Portage, has grown to about 1,500 hectares in size since it was first detected on Thursday. Crews are trying to protect the hydro line between the latter two communities. Both fires started due to natural causes.

On April 1 of this month, the Western Canada SFI Implementation Committee and the Tree Frog News launched the second annual Wildfire Resilience and Awareness Week. If you missed it, we’re happy to share a recap of the articles we featured. Thanks to all who participated! 

Working to improve the accuracy of fuel typing in Canada
By Kate Bezooyen, MSc (Candidate), FIT; Gregory Greene, PhD; John Davies, RPF
Forsite Consultants Ltd.

Helping Students Understand the Nature of Fire
Project Learning Tree Canada

Coastal Fire Centre prevention plan under development for 2024 wildfire season
By Rebecca Grogan, Communications Assistant
Coastal Fire Centre

Private Land Burning – A Message to Landowners and the Province
By Bruce Blackwell M.Sc. RPF RPBio.
B.A. Blackwell and Associates Ltd.

A Look Into Fire Mitigation Best Practices And Research In BC
By Heidi Walsh, RPF
DRS Phoenix Connect

New centre at UBC to advance wildfire research, collaboration and innovation
By Lori Daniels, Koerner Chair in Wildfire Coexistence
UBC Faculty of Forestry

Police and firefighters are going door-to-door telling people who live in the vicinity of a wildfire burning out of control near Chetwynd they need to evacuate. In a social media post Wednesday evening, the BC Wildfire Service says local RCMP and the Chetwynd Fire Department are doing a “tactical evacuation” near the fire, which was discovered around 3:45 p.m. In just a few hours, the fire has grown to 40 hectares in size, according to the agency. A 10-kilometre stretch of Highway 97 has also been shut down in both directions due to the wildfire. Drive BC says the closures start four kilometres away from Chetwynd—a town in B.C.’s northeast roughly 300 kilometres north of Prince George—and end 14 kilometres away.

CARIBOO, B.C. — Susanne Langan first noticed the Burgess Creek wildfire from her home in British Columbia’s Cariboo region on Saturday afternoon as a distant, thin column of smoke. But as winds picked up that night, the flames became more aggressive. “I could see lots of trees going up like Roman candles,” said Langan, who works as an equipment operator at Mount Polley Mine, about 50 kilometres north of Williams Lake. …In addition to the 1,600-hectare Burgess Creek fire about 600 kilometres north of Vancouver, the tiny town of Endako, a further 400 kilometres northwest, is also under an evacuation alert, threatened by a blaze that the BC Wildfire Service said on Sunday was less than a kilometre west of the town. …an evacuation alert for Endako was issued Sunday after 60 km/h winds began pushing the flames toward the community of a few dozen homes that sit on the north side of Highway 16.

Some residents of Cold Lake-area First Nations have been told they need to evacuate the area immediately as flames approach, while people living in a hamlet near Fort McMurray have had the evacuation alert for their community cancelled. An emergency alert was issued just before 5 p.m. for First Nation of Cold Lake #149 (Legoff) due to a wildfire nearby. Residents have been told to go to the community hall and to look for updates on social media. The alert states the wildfire is burning in the area between Range Road 430 and Range Road 434. Meanwhile, near Slave Lake, a wildfire fire in the area of Canyon Creek triggered a temporary closure of Highway 2 on Sunday afternoon. For several hours, sections of the highway near the fire were experiencing poor visibility due to the smoke. The highway has since reopened.

The 2024 fire season got off to an explosive start in the Cariboo Fire Centre on April 20 with multiple fires breaking out around the region. Challenged by dry, windy conditions, the BC Wildfire Service responded to several wildfires, including the largest and most visible fire, the Burgess Creek wildfire, located between Williams Lake and Quesnel. …the Burgess Creek wildfire was discovered at approximately 3 p.m. on Saturday, and grew to 50 hectares by evening. In the Sunday morning update, the fire is now estimated to be 1,600 hectares. …The Burgess Creek wildfire remains out of control, and has prompted a continued full response from the BCWS on site including crews, air support and heavy equipment. Smoke from the fire is highly visible… There are no structures in the area of the fire, which has been classified as suspected to be human caused. …the fire appears to be location within several logging blocks.

Fire season is underway. Southern Vancouver Island’s had its first officially reported wildfire on April 5 — though the small human-caused spot fire near Shawnigan Lake was quickly dealt with. “We had dispatched a response officer who attended and determined that our crews were not required, as the fire was quickly brought under control by people on site who had remained on site until the fire was extinguished,” said Rebecca Grogan, a fire information officer for BC Wildfire Service. The fire grew to about two metres by five metres before it was put out, Grogan added. It was about 1.5 kilometres east of Shawnigan Lake in the Strathcona Heights area, which put it in the Shawnigan Lake Fire Department’s jurisdiction. BC Wildfire had responded before they had accurate coordinates for the fire.

With the 2024 wildfire season heavily looming over the backs of Canadians after last year’s historic wildfire season, none will be feeling the pressure more than Western Canada. Widespread drought, low snow-pack levels, and warm temperatures have many people fearing for what this season will bring. Alberta’s wildfire season typically runs from March 1 to Oct. 31, but on Feb. 20, Alberta’s forestry minister declared an early start to the season, allowing for the province to expand their wildland firefighter numbers and proactively prepare for what’s to come. Now, over a full month into the wildfire season, Alberta is battling 57 active wildfires, 50 of which are fires still burning deep in the ground from 2023.

CHETWYND — The BC Wildfire Service is busy battling a 5.2 hectare blaze south of Chetwynd. The fire was discovered on March 31 and is now classified as out-of-control. An out-of-control wildfire is a wildfire that is continuing to spread and is not responding to suppression efforts. The blaze is approximately 7 kilometres from the Sukunka River Forest Service Road in the Dawson Creek Fire Zone. BC Wildfire Service is responding to the wildfire with seven firefighters, a water tender, and a dozer. An official cause has not been released. There are currently 100 active wildfires burning across British Columbia.

The Okanagan Forest Task Force was formed in 2016 with the goal of cleaning up the Okanagan’s backcountry. Since the group’s formation, millions of pounds of illegally dumped garbage have been cleaned up by the task force. Founder Kane Blake says the volunteers do more than just collect garbage. On Friday, Blake shared alarming statistics of how many abandoned fires the team put out during May to October of 2023. “We put out roughly 300 abandoned fires between Kelowna and Lake Country. They just get left unattended or they are done for the night and feel it’s just okay to leave,” Blake said. He says roughly 30 to 40 of the fires were put out during strict fire bans. “Five of the fires had already started to catch brush and/or trees in the area on fire,” Blake added. The volunteer group saved one life during a vehicle fire which the team put out.