We can expect it to take weeks, even months, before the fires currently raging in Quebec are extinguished, while such episodes are likely to multiply with climate change.
“It can take months before all the hot spots are extinguished,” explains Karine Pelletier, prevention and communications officer at the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU).
This would be the case for large fires, while small isolated fires could run out of steam more quickly, specifies Mme Peltier.
Quebec is currently experiencing a sad forest fire record, with 156 active fires and nearly 160,000 hectares of forest gone up in smoke. The Abitibi and Côte-Nord regions are particularly affected.
Prime Minister François Legault predicts that we will probably have enough to fight these fires for the summer.
At the start of the season, the SOPFEU weather team predicted a fairly quiet summer. “Finally, we had little surprises”, ironically Mme Peltier.
little rain
It is difficult to predict the evolution of such fires, because they depend on several meteorological factors, she explains. Lightning and dry weather can promote fire, while rain and humidity can help contain it.
However, the weather conditions for the next few days are not very encouraging. In the west of the province, a fair weather system is taking hold. No precipitation is announced for Abitibi before next Saturday, says Jean-Philippe Bégin, outreach meteorologist for Environment Canada.
In the east, a rain system from the Atlantic is expected as early as Tuesday morning, but it will fall mainly in Gaspésie. Between 10 and 20 millimeters are expected on the North Shore.
“It’s not a panacea,” concludes Mr. Bégin.
- Listen to the interview with Dr. Luc Boileau, National Director of Public Health for Quebec on QUB radio:
The example of Fort McMurray
It will be recalled that in 2016, it took three months before the Fort McMurray fire in Alberta was considered under control. And even after that, the embers lingered underground through the fall and winter. It was only at the end of the summer of 2017 that it was brought under control.
For a forest fire to be considered extinguished, there must be no hot spots left, explains Yan Boucher, professor of forest ecology at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi.
At SOPFEU, we observe that the last fire of each summer tends to occur later. “Before, it was pretty much over in August. There, we have until November, ”notes Karine Pelletier.
Yan Boucher is among those who study the number, frequency and even severity of forest fires. Strangely, there were many more at the end of the 19e century than in our time, he remarks.
Although it is difficult to decide between the part of humans and the part of nature in the causes of an episode of fires, it is clear that climate change contributes to creating favorable conditions for their outbreak, in particular by increasing drought and stormy weather which results in lightning lines.
“It is sure that they will be more frequent in the future”, says Mr. Boucher.
– With QMI Agency