Canadian 2010 fire season

[eechoss]

Fire season is almost here! so ladies and gents, how do you think your province will fair this year? what are you guys expecting for a season? Can other provinces be expected to be traveling to your province? :). Although we all hope for a good fire season, some provinces fair better then others!

In Manitoba were hoping for some pretty big fires, the past two years have been just terrible and all that fuel is piling up added with our warmer winter, I think it should be a good year!

What about your guys provinces?!

[Birdo]

Apparently Environment Canada is predicting a dry summer for BC.

I gave up trying to predict how a given season will look many years ago.
I find that yearly precip is generally averages itself out over a year. Mild winters and early, dry springs can just as easily turn into wet summers as dry ones. I don't trust weather predictions more then about two days out as a rule.

[eechoss]

It's a mix of weather conditions that has fire officials on edge in some parts of the country.

Many provinces are in the midst of a stretch of warm, dry weather, following a winter that, in many cases, brought less-than-normal amounts of snow and rain. The result could be an early start to the forest fire season.

'There's no question that some parts of the country saw less snow than usual this winter,' says Weather Network meteorologist Mark Robinson. 'It's still too early to tell, but that could be an indicator of a dry summer.'

B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner is already warning residents to be prepared for possible drought this summer. There have been record-low levels of snowpack in the mountains this year, and temperatures have been quite mild in recent weeks.

The B.C. Forest Service has already announced an open burning ban, which goes into effect at noon on Friday. The ban covers Crown lands, parks and private lands outside local government boundaries in the Cariboo region.

The fire season has also gotten off to an early start on Canada's east coast. Dozens of grass fires werereported in Nova Scotia during the month of March. At one point, 50 grass fires were reported in Cape Breton in only 24 hours. A burning ban was issued for the city of Halifax -- the earliest ever in the city's history.

This week, several brush fires were reported in the Calgary area.

In Ontario, municipal fire departments declared a ban on all open-air burning in Rainy River due to dry conditions.

Still, forecasters say a dry winter and spring may not necessarily lead to a dry summer.

'El Nino seasons are interesting, because some places could still see increased precipitation in the coming weeks,' explains Robinson. 'The El Nino pattern will begin breaking down around May, so we should have a better idea by then what we can expect through the summer.'

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=EarlyFireSeasonMarch_31_03_2010?ref=ccbo x_weather_bottom_title

[Knockdown]

I'd say that we are in for a busy season. Duff is three feet thick in spots around here. Snowpack is less than 50% of normal. Local municipality's are already talking about water restrictions. We were in Lillooet last season and saw some very good examples of interface remediation, especially around the first nations area's. We were also at Bella Rosa and Terrace mountain where there was no preperation for an interface situation. To compare, you may remember that Lillooet was evacuated for three days, while Terrace Mountain (Fintry) was evacuated for over two weeks.

It's great to see BCFS starting to think ahead in these areas where fire fighting operations would be more difficult. Here is a link to a story about what they are going to try in my neck of the woods.

bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/vernonmorningstar/news/89556747.html

I'm a structural guy, on call for interface ops, but I'd bet those of you who prefer a pulaski to a halligan will have no shortage of opportunities this year.

See you there !

[Knockdown]

The site wont let me post URL's yet. If you want to see that story you need to add the http//www. ahead of that line.

Cheers