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CBC
2 days ago
- Climate
- CBC
N.S. wildfire season off to a slow start after cool, wet spring
The wildfire season in Nova Scotia has been off to a "slow" start, according to the manager of forest protection with the province's natural resources department. Wildfire season in Nova Scotia runs from March 15 to Oct. 15 and Scott Tingely told CBC News that so far, the number of fires and the amount of hectares burned are both below average at this point. "We had a pretty cool, wet spring so far, so that has certainly helped kind of mitigate the conditions and the risk," Tingley said. As of Thursday, 39 fires have burned about 35 hectares across the province so far. Changing weather conditions This past week, however, has been somewhat concerning because of the hot and windy conditions, he said. There was a small fire in West Gore on Wednesday evening that burned through about 1.5 hectares. The wildfire situation in Nova Scotia has changed rapidly over the last week, according to data from Natural Resources Canada. On Tuesday, the department listed the fire danger across most of the province as low. And as of Thursday, that classification was raised to high for the bulk of the mainland and Cape Breton. Tingley said this week's low humidity and high temperatures, along with breezy winds, do create favourable conditions for wildfires, but we're now in a "green up" period. That's important for bringing shade and moisture to dry areas. "We're starting to see a lot of the trees starting to leaf out," he said. "The trees greening up are kind of mitigating some of that risk as well." CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddon said this year, the biggest issue is how long it's been since the last rainfall. "With leftover dead grass and shrubs from the winter, it doesn't take long for things to dry out," Snoddon said. "On that note, we've had a pretty good May with some rain every few days." Mitigation since record wildfire year Tingley said in the two years since after the province's most devastating wildfire season on record, the Department of Natural Resources has implemented all the recommendations that were in a report about the department's response in 2023. Some of those changes include updating equipment, renewing the helicopter fleet and improving internal communication procedures. He said the department has also worked on adding more personnel to the teams that deal with wildfires. "That was a recognized gap and we've done a lot adding capacity to our ability to respond, particularly around incident management teams and getting more people trained to respond and support the efforts," Tingley said. The wildfires of 2023 tore through areas of Shelburne County and the Upper Tantallon area just north of Halifax, destroying more than 200 homes and burning 25,000 hectares of forest. Last year, things shifted dramatically, with the province seeing its least active wildfire season on record, with 83 wildfires burning about 47.5 hectares of land. Tingley said some of that change could be due to residents changing their behaviour when it comes to burning since 2023. A fine of $25,000 was temporarily put in place for illegal burning in the province. That fine was made permanent earlier this month.
CBC
3 days ago
- Climate
- CBC
Crews battle wildfire in remote area of Cape Breton
Crews are battling a wildfire in a remote area of Cape Breton's Richmond County. The blaze started around 5 p.m. AT Thursday on Three Rivers Road in Framboise, about 66 kilometres southwest of Sydney, according to a news release from the Municipality of the County of Richmond. The fire is about 15 hectares in size and has crossed at least one roadway, the release says. No evacuation orders have been issued, but residents are being asked to remain vigilant. One old trailer, vacant for over 20 years, has been lost in the blaze. A residence has been soaked down as a precaution and another has a sprinkler system set up. 'They're making progress' Scott Tingley, manager of forest protection with the province's Natural Resources Department, said those two homes are the only ones in the vicinity of the fire, but there is no imminent threat to properties. He said there are 17 staff members from Natural Resources are on the scene, as well as rough 12 volunteer firefighters. "Crews were on site early so they're making progress," Tingley told CBC's Information Morning Nova Scotia. On Thursday evening, multiple volunteer fire departments fought the fire, but weren't able to contain it. Ground crews focused on extinguishing the blaze and saturating surrounding areas to reduce the risk of the wildfire spreading. Most of those crews left for the night, but were prepared to return if conditions worsened. Lois Landry, warden for the Municipality of the County of Richmond, said the area is quite rural and sparsely populated. She said cellphone service is not good, which is a concern when trying to communicate with emergency crews on the ground. "There's efforts afoot to try to improve that but it's times like this really where that lack of service is really significant," Landry said in an interview Friday morning. The province issued a fire ban for most of Nova Scotia on Thursday following several days of warm, sunny weather. There was a little reprieve from hot and dry conditions as rain fell overnight into Friday.
