This text is taken from Courrier de la planete, to subscribe, click here.
The wildfire season could be as “catastrophic” as last year, according to estimates. Some signs point to an early season. How can we better prepare? The duty met Philippe Gachon, researcher at the Center for the Study and Simulation of Climate on a Regional Scale at UQAM, to take stock of the issue. Comments collected by Jasmine Legendre.
Last year, Quebec was marked by the numerous forest fires which ravaged the territory. Around 4.5 million hectares burned, a record. Can we expect such a devastating season in 2024?
We are already in a warmer context at the same period. We have just broken the temperature record for a thirteenth consecutive month. Last year we had an early spring, particularly in the north, which caused the snow to melt extremely quickly and which also meant no precipitation for days or even weeks.
Snow has an extremely important role, especially for the east of the country, therefore for Quebec and the Maritimes. As soon as it melts, four days after there has been no precipitation, the start of the fire season is declared. The melted snow will potentially infiltrate the ground, moisten it, therefore delaying the likelihood of fires.
But if there is no precipitation very quickly, the soil dries out. What is particular in Quebec and Canada is that the substrate, the leaves, the needles which remained under the snow became dehydrated during the winter. When there is no rain, once the snow has melted, it is an extremely flammable fuel.
And what happened last year was: no precipitation, an early start of snow, very high temperatures and a series of storms which occurred at the end of May, beginning of June. If memory serves, something like 120 fires broke out in the space of a week or ten days, which is huge.
You have to go back more than 200 years to see such an area burned by forest fires.
This year, there was almost no snow… Are we in a similar situation to 2023?
We had more snow at that time. This is why I say that in 2024, we must be careful. Surveillance needs to be done. We really have much less snow on the ground. And that, over the vast majority of Canada. So, no snow… and we already have an early spring.
The other factor to watch out for is that the Atlantic Ocean is warmer than it was last year. This accentuates the phenomena of persistence, of atmospheric blocking which favors hot and dry weather which persists.
All this potentially means a fire season which is likely to be longer, but perhaps also more severe than last year.
Are there areas of the country that need to be monitored more carefully?
Absolutely. Alberta, already, then British Columbia, which had much less snow than last year. Moreover, there are starting to be water shortage problems in Alberta as far as Manitoba. Some municipalities are having difficulty accessing water, because not only was last summer dry, but there was no snow. Fortunately, March was colder than usual in the West, especially in Alberta. It has slowed down a bit, since the fire season could have started much earlier.
In Quebec, we had a little respite [début avril] because we had a snowstorm, but it mainly affected the south and Gaspésie. The north continues to have a deficit of snow compared to the normal ones we are used to seeing at this time of year.
How can we predict and adapt to these forest fires?
First, we must work on awareness and education. We realized last year that residents or municipalities may not have been attentive to the fact of having a coniferous forest near villages or houses. Because these are extremely flammable pine forests, and we saw the consequences that this had on the number of infrastructures that were destroyed. Protect buildings: there are coverings that are obviously less flammable than shingles, for example.
Next, we must improve predictability. If we are able to anticipate, very early in the season, situations of blocking and atmospheric circulation which remain persistent before they arrive or when they are forming, that helps enormously. This allows SOPFEU to plan its resources, its quota, its necessary equipment, and to target locations.
The sooner we know that a season is going to be problematic, the sooner we can prepare, and we save millions of dollars.
Can we draw inspiration from other countries?
Yes. The Europeans are investing enormous resources to increase the number of helicopters, air tankers, or what we call Canadairs.
So, equip yourself to be able to better intervene, but also provide training, for complete civil security. What we have done very little in Quebec and Canada is to share field experiences and knowledge learned from what happened last year. My colleagues from the Canadian Forest Service did this with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry in November. But we meteorologists are never invited to talk about the state of the climate, about why we are more concerned this year.
Last element: the Europeans have implemented extremely effective resource sharing. Americans have understood that the State of California must also share its experience with other states and the federal government.
There are things we have learned in recent years about forest fires. For example, when we have large burned areas, large clouds, pyrocumulus, can form, because there is a lot of heat and humidity that comes from the burning of the forest. These clouds can be the origin of storms, which themselves will develop other fires. But there is very little research being done in Canada as well.
Do we lack the manpower to successfully control forest fires?
Yes, on several levels. First, the Quebec government responded to some of SOPFEU’s requests for telephone towers in the north. They have implemented better communication capacity. On the ground, it will be necessary to increase the contingent of firefighters on the ground.
But it also involves equipment that we must plan to purchase. Most of our air tankers date from the 1960s-1970s. Several remained grounded last year because they were under repair. So we need a bigger fleet. And there is a serious shortage of pilots. We need to train pilots capable of working in conditions like these.
SOPFEU needs knowledge in meteorology, so they come to UQAM, because we train a lot in atmospheric science. In the French-speaking area, we have two universities in Quebec which have training in meteorology. It would take more resources to increase this capacity to train specialists in the field of weather and forest fires.
There has been a lot of false information circulating over the past year about forest fires… What is the impact of climate change?
Climate change, with current warming, explains that we have forest fires twice as severe in terms of their severity as in the past. And the more warming increases, the more the probability of having this type will increase.
What will you be watching closely in the coming weeks?
Temperature anomalies. We are monitoring whether spring is as warm and active in the north as it was last year. And combined with that: precipitation. For the moment, we have a lot of systems passing through the south, but in the north, there haven’t been many. Moreover, Hydro-Québec is worried about the low water levels in the James Bay reservoirs and others. For the boreal forest, this is an issue.
Another element that we will have to monitor: we know that there are fires smoldering in the ground, which date from last year. There would be around thirty in the West, we are not sure because these fires, unfortunately, we do not see them. There could be some around Lebel-sur-Quévillon, for example.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
This text is taken from Courrier de la planete.