By Stephanie Froese

Rain not reaching north, fire risk high

Jun 20, 2011 | 4:48 PM

Southern Saskatchewan may have way too much moisture but Northern Saskatchewan isn’t seeing any, said Brent Krayetski, Provincial Wildfire Co-ordinator.

Although there is no fire ban in effect at the moment Krayetski said conditions are very similar to what the Prince Albert experienced when there was a fire ban in May.

“The fine fuels are extreme and were looking at relative humidities lower than our temperatures and fairly significant winds so those conditions are extremes,” Krayetski said.

Even though the conditions are dry the 223 fires to date this year is less than the 10 year average. Krayetski said this year is actually very similar to last year with the amount of precipitation they have received over the full response zone.

“In a typical year we don’t get that so we would have more fires in the fire zone caused by lightning and your numbers would be up accordingly,” he said.

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Thunder and lightning has been a common occurrence for the province’s south and those weather systems have also reached the Prince Albert area. Krayetski said some precipitation that has reached just south of the Churchill River definitely assisted their control but further north is a different story.

“The line between Southend and between Cluff Lake up towards the north and northeast has received no precipitation and were still looking at extremes fire behavior conditions up there,” he said.

There have been no new fire starts over the past several days. Krayetski attributes that to a lack of lightning in the area. He said any lightning they did get came with rain.
As of Monday, there were a total of 23 fires in the province, 16 of them in the La Ronge area.

Krayetski said the 14 fires that are not classified as being under control are being observed and are not endangering any communities.

“We have some fires that were doing values protection on,” Krayetski said.

That means they are trying to control areas of the fires that would threaten anything like a cabin or a boat.

“We’ve set up some sprinklers on some outpost camps and things like that around the vicinity of those fires,” he said.

Mother Nature seems to have a mixed bag when it comes to the fire zone. Warmer temperatures, sunshine, up to 5 mm of rain and a chance of thunderstorms are all in the forecast this week which could end up helping or hindering fire conditions in Northern Saskatchewan.

sfroese@panow.com