OTTAWA — The start to wildfire season has been far less dramatic than it was last year but the risk of hot, dry weather and severe fires remains high, officials warned Thursday. That risk is driving earlier planning to respond to wildfires and a pilot project involving volunteers from Canadian aid organizations to improve the national response to severe fires that require evacuations. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported around 90 fires burning as of noon on Thursday, including 12 classified as being out of control. “At the same time last year the situation was quite different,” said Jean-Francois Duperre, the director of emergency planning for the government operations centre at Public Safety Canada. …Last summer there were 18 requests for federal assistance from the provinces and territories, and 2,135 Canadian Armed Forces personnel were deployed to help.