There’s some good news in the forecast for the Yukon’s fire season.
The Yukon government held a briefing Thursday afternoon forecasting how the fire season is shaping up, as well as a roundup of preparations for the season and the outlook for potential flooding.
Mike Smith is the chief meteorologist for Yukon Wildland Fire Management and, by extension, the territory. He said the wildfire season so far is the most normal season in several years.
“We’re pretty fortunate to have the first normal start in a few years,” Smith said. “But there is warmer weather on the way.”
So far, there are nine fires burning, but only two of them have required intervention.
Ten more have been extinguished, according to Wildland Fire reports dated to Wednesday.
There are not many indicators that the situation is likely to grow worse over the next month or two.
“The long-range forecast is still normal,” Smith added.
He estimates there will be no huge problems in the next six to eight weeks.
“We have had fires in some of those areas, (but) they’re not burning the big fuels that make a fire turn into sort of a two-month endeavour rather than a two- or three-day-and-wait-for-rain endeavour,” Smith said.
That’s based on “how dry the forest fuels are right now, and what we’re seeing with weather coming up.”
Through most of the territory, conditions are not especially dry, although there are spots in the central Yukon that are.
The snowpack through most of the Yukon were below average this winter, with the exception being some of the north and central regions.
Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn said despite that good news, the season had “already tested the territory.
“I’m proud of our preparations,” he said.
Greg Blackjack of the Yukon Emergency Measures Organization said the spring flooding experienced in the Klondike region wasn’t as severe as in past years, and most of the danger has now abated.
As with the fire forecast, he said, it’s looking like a more normal flooding season that has occurred over the past few years all over the territory.
