Preparations are already well underway for wildfire season, with Community Wildfire Preparedness Day taking place across Canada on Saturday. In Quebec, the statistics concerning spring fires are slightly higher than average, but it is still too early to worry about the rest of the season.
Preparedness Day takes place each year on the first Saturday in May, and is organized by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC), through the FireSmart program.
“We give the groups that apply a prize of $500 to fund events that they can organize in their community, in their community, in their neighborhood, to reduce the risk of forest fires,” explains Jennifer Kamau, communications manager at CIFFC.
This year, awards were presented to 378 neighborhoods, 165 more than last year. “We are seeing greater interest across the country in the FireSmart program,” says Ms. Kamau.
Last year, Canada experienced a catastrophic wildfire season. According to Natural Resources Canada, the forest fire season in 2023 was the most destructive on record, while as of September 5, more than 6,132 fires had ravaged 16.5 million hectares of territory in the country. “This is an area larger than that of Greece and more than double the 1989 record,” we can read on the website of the federal ministry.
According to the Society for the Protection of Forests Against Fire (SOPFEU), fires burned 4.3 million hectares in Quebec in 2023, a record. The organization specifies that 99.9% of the burned areas were caused by lightning.
The CIFFC therefore offers several measures to citizens to prepare for the season.
“The simplest things start in our own backyard. For example, for gardening, we recommend that the lawn be cut to a height of ten centimeters or less, we recommend that people remove debris, dead leaves, dead branches from their yard, to avoid that when there In a fire, this type of debris ignites quickly and transfers to the structure of the house. We also recommend landscaping that uses non-combustible materials, we often think of rocks, instead of using mulch,” explains Ms. Kamau.
It is still too early to know how the forest fire season will unfold in Quebec. Even if regions surrounded by forest are more at risk, it is the weather that controls everything, recalls Josée Poitras, communications officer at SOPFEU.
The first fires break out in the province in urban and peri-urban areas south of the St. Lawrence River in spring.
“Often these are spring fires to clean up, and the person loses control of their fire,” says Ms. Poitras
The more the season progresses, “we begin to see fires in Mauricie that could be likely to be large in area, and very aggressive,” she adds, specifying that Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Abitibi and the North Shore are also among the regions that may be affected.
“So far, in terms of the statistics we have, it is certain that we have more fires than the seasonal average, but there is no reason to be alarmed,” maintains Ms. Poitras. There are 62 fires where SOPFEU intervened to affect 54.9 hectares of forest, while the average at the same date, for spring fires, is 54 fires for 36 hectares of forest affected by the fire. »
SOPFEU reminds that multiple preventive measures that citizens can put in place to prevent forest fires are detailed on its website.
Preparations and awareness in Chibougamau
The town of Chibougamau, located in the Nord-du-Québec region, is one of the municipalities that were hit hard by forest fires last year. The municipality even had to be evacuated in June.
Even if Chibougamau did not experience an early spring, traces of snow could still be seen on Saturday in the municipality, the City has already begun its preparations for the forest fire season, indicates Mayor Manon Cyr, in an interview .
The municipality’s emergency measures plan has notably been updated. “The worst scenario was evacuation. So we were able to test (the plan) in reality. We can see a little bit of what is still working well, and we have been able to make certain small adjustments, but overall, we are confident in our emergency measures plan,” explains Ms. Cyr.
Citizens will also be informed about forest fires in the coming days. This weekend, SOPFEU and the Chibougamau firefighters are holding a booth at the city’s job fair, says Ms. Cyr, in order to remind citizens of prevention measures.
This week, an information session regarding the mechanized stop line, which Chibougamau used last year, will also take place. Then, a SOPFEU report will be presented to the population on Tuesday. The organization had been mandated by the City to decide what other arrangements should be put in place to protect the municipality.
“People are preparing, we are working on what we can control. We cannot control nature, so we will see,” concludes Ms. Cyr.