Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) meteorologists continue to forecast spring and summer conditions that pose increased risks of wildfires in Canada.
Trends for the coming weeks and months show that precipitation will be below seasonal norms, federal government officials advised Thursday morning during a technical briefing for the media.
Temperatures above seasonal norms which will persist in the coming months, El Niño and climate change also mean that authorities are in a state of high alert.
Drought conditions have been observed over the past 12 months across the country.
These drought conditions are expected to persist in high-risk regions such as the southern Prairies and western provinces through the month of May.
Western Quebec under surveillance
In Quebec, there is a “possibility of above-normal fire activity” in the west of the province during the month of May.
“If you live in eastern Ontario or western Quebec, you may be experiencing a more active wildfire season than usual,” said the federal Minister of Energy, Jonathan Wilkinson, during a press conference in Ottawa.
Since the start of the fire season, there have been 737 fires across the country.
Currently, there are 87 active fires, including six in the west of the country, which are out of control.
The west of the country “remains the hotspot”, according to officials from Environment and Climate Change Canada and the risk of forest fires is high in this region.
But government officials participating in the technical briefing indicated that the situation is better than it was this time last year.
“Last year at the same time, we saw exceptionally warm temperatures in Alberta, when some of the big fires started, in late April and early May” and “one of the differences with last year , is that we have not seen such warm temperatures,” explained Nathan Gillet, ECCC researcher.
Attacks on conservatives
For Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, the prospect of a new active forest fire season only confirms the need to take more measures to fight and adapt to climate change:
“If we don’t tackle climate pollution, there are going to be more and more impacts of climate change, more wildfires, more heat waves, more floods, more tropical storms. And this is something that the Conservative Party refuses to admit, it even refuses to discuss it,” said the minister, attacking the opposition party.