THUNDER BAY – Warm weather and winds are expected to boost the forest fire hazard across much of Northwestern Ontario to high to extreme conditions over the coming week.
There are 117 personnel from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry on assignment in the Northwest Territories (29), Alberta (13), and British Columbia (75) to assist in their forest fire management efforts.
These personnel are from Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services bases across the province and are FireRanger crews, Incident Management Team (IMT) members as well as specialists in areas such as fire behaviour analysis, liaison and helicopter coordination.
In the Northwest Territories, there is one 8-person IMT, one overhead staff and five 4-person fire crews. In British Columbia, there is one 16-person IMT, one 19-person IMT, one 9-person IMT, and 31 overhead staff.
In Alberta, there are three 4-person fire crews and one overhead staff. Additional resources have been requested and Ontario is organizing for further dispatches later this week.
A serious fire near the BC Alberta border has caused a state of local emergency and evacuation order to be declared by MD of Greenview No 16. The evacuation area is south of the Wapiti River, West of Nose Creek to the BC Border, west of Gunderson Creek to the BC border,north of Twp 61.
There were no new fires in the Northwest region by the evening of July 16. It is quiet in the region with three active fires that are being monitored. Two are in the Red Lake District in the far north and one is in the south end of Quetico Provincial Park in the Fort Frances District.
The fire hazard is rising under fair weather conditions and is forecast to be moderate to high in the southern sectors and high to extreme in the north. Cloud is expected to track into the region from the west on the weekend which will help drop the hazard in the north at least to moderate.
This drop in hazard is not expected to last and the north will be in a high to extreme hazard by next week.
