Photo courtesy Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry/Twitter
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry had its work cut out for it this summer with forest fires.
Spokesperson Chris Marchand notes in northwestern Ontario they battled about 300 fire, fewer than half from last year but more ground was burned.
“In the end, despite a lower fire count, wildland fires actually affected a little more of the land base than they did in the previous year, just in less visible and more remote places,” says Marchand.
Marchand adds the forest fire season doesn’t come to conclusion until the end of October so there’s still a chance of more fires sparking.
“Those numbers amount to less than about half of last year’s fire count. With that said, it was still a fairly busy year in many respects. Here in the northwest, we had a handful of very aggressive fires.”
Most of those fires put remote communities at risk in the Red Lake and Sioux Lookout districts forcing some evacuations.
“It can be accounted for by 6 fires that began between May 29 and June 30. This is the time when dry grasses and other fine fuels can really produce intense fire behaviour.”
Across the province, there have been 529 forest fires so far.
