Canada prepares for another season of flames as ‘zombie fires’ burn.

OTTAWA, Ontario – Canada’s emergency preparedness minister warns that the winter season forest fires This year’s season will be worse than the record-breaking 2023 season, when thousands of wildfires burned tens of millions of acres and sent plumes of smoke engulfing major U.S. cities, including New York and WashingtonNo.

This year’s fires could be particularly severe in two of the country’s most fire-prone provinces, where nearly 150 of the fires that started during last year’s season are still burning this winter, under snow-covered ground.

Despite the calls “zombie fires”,” a term recently popularized by Canadian media, are an annual phenomenon in some parts of the country, so many fires have never been reported in a single winter, raising fears that many could erupt again on the surface.

The “zombie fires” persist through the winter because the porous peat and moss cover in the northern areas serve as underground fuel for them.

According to research published last summer by Canada, the risk of wildfires in Canada has increased due to climate change, which increases the hot, dry and windy conditions that have led to droughts. World weather attribution, a group of scientists modeling how climate change affects extreme weather. .

Given drought conditions in parts of Western Canada and other extreme weather effects, Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s emergency preparedness minister, said it’s not surprising that the fire forecast is “alarming.”

He added that climate change “is the reality we face and we must prepare for it.”

Many of the underground fires, burning in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, pose no greater risk of sparking wildfires in the spring because they are in places so charred that there is no vegetation left to burn.

But others are in areas that drought has turned into tinderboxes, raising fears that they could spark above-ground fires once spring arrives.

Last year’s fires burned approximately 48 million acres of forest across Canada, an area about the size of Finland, and a staggering 170% increase. compared to the previous year, according to the Canadian Interagency Wildfire Centre.

Smoke from the fires, particularly those burning in Quebec, reached as far south as Florida and covered several cities in the United States and southern Canada with a noxious cloud.

The drought in Western Canada is entering its third year and is a major factor behind fears of an even worse fire season in 2024, particularly in British Columbia and Alberta.

Both provinces have already seen new surface fires this year, prompting Alberta to declare the start of its fire season about a week earlier than the traditional start date of March 1.

Hope

THE to snow It could still fall in the spring and control existing fires and help with drought conditions, said Mike Flannigan, a professor of fire science at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia.

But this year, he added, forecasts suggest continued drought and warmer-than-usual temperatures.

About 93 fires remaining from last year continued to burn underground through the winter in British Columbia, while 55 are burning in Alberta, according to provincial governments.

These winter fires are common in both provinces, as well as the Yukon, but in British Columbia there are usually no more than 15, experts said, adding that this year’s larger number left them surprised and worried.

No background

“There is no historical analogy to what we are seeing now,” Flannigan said.

“Most years it’s not a big deal. But now many of these fires have the potential to regrow as the snow melts and it becomes hot, dry and windy. That’s why it’s a serious problem.”

No winter fires were reported in the forests of Quebec, the eastern province that sent clouds of smoke toward the United States and at one point across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Quebec generally lacks the peat and moss of the western provinces that serve as fuel for winter fires.

Because winter fires are underground and can produce little or no visible smoke, tracking them can be a challenge.

British Columbia’s fire service said it relies on sensors on planes and satellites to look for heat, although snow cover reduces their effectiveness.

However, some fires are visible to the naked eye.

“Even on -40 or -42 degree Celsius days, we still saw smoke,” said Sonja ER Leverkus, senior fire manager at Northern Fire WoRx, a private wildland fire service in a remote section of British Columbia north-eastern.

“So much so that while you were driving you could smell smoke and cough in your truck.”

In a typical year, melted snow seeps into the ground where winter fires burn and extinguish most of it.

But this year it snowed much less than usual, said Leverkus, a fire ecology expert.

“I’m 6’3” and there have been times in the last few years when the snow in my apple orchard came well above my hips,” he said, adding that there was less than a foot on the ground.

Sajjan, the emergency preparedness minister, said Canada was better prepared to fight fires and evacuate communities this year.

While the provinces and territories are responsible for fighting fires, the federal money has enabled the training of an additional 600 firefighters across the country.

Preparations

A system intended to allow provinces to share personnel and equipment has been revamped to make it more efficient and speed up information sharing, Sajjan said.

Equipment supplies have been increased, he said, and are being introduced or try new techniquessuch as night firefighting.

While the forecast for this year’s fire season appears grim, Flannigan stressed that it is still just a prediction.

“I don’t expect to see another year like 2023 in my lifetime, but I could be wrong,” he said.

However, he added, the long-term outlook for Canada is bleak.

“Most years will be bad for fires,” Flannigan said.

“But on average we will see a lot more fire and a lot more smoke. “This trend will continue.”

At Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Leverkus, whose crew numbered more than 100 people at the peak of the fire season, said she is still haunted by eight firefighter deaths in Canada last year.

Two of them occurred in areas close to where their teams worked.

“Last year was horrible,” he said.

“My crew and I listen to what the earth tells us. And the earth tells us that it is dry and the animals tell us that it is dry and that we must be prepared.”

c.2024 The New York Times Company