Alec Salloum
Regina Leader-Post
Less than six weeks ago, Marlo Pritchard was anticipating an average season for wildfires in Saskatchewan.
That was on the heels of a 2024 season which saw the province’s second-largest number of wildfire incidents and the second-largest recorded burn area in a decade.
“The overall picture for Saskatchewan indicates better conditions than we saw in 2024,” Pritchard, president of the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA), said on April 23.
That statement is a far cry from those made Thursday by Pritchard and Premier Scott Moe, who triggered a state of emergency and put the call out for anyone with wildfire training to report to their nearest firehall.
Situation deteriorating rapidly
On Friday morning, the SPSA said 207 year-to-date fires have been registered in Saskatchewan, which is 80 more than the five-year average and 40 more than the previous year to date.
More than 8,300 people from northern Saskatchewan are under evacuation orders, and fire bans have expanded to include driving all-terrain vehicles and utility terrain vehicles.
“I do fear things are going to deteriorate with the weather that we have ahead of us,” Moe said Thursday.
So how did we get from an anticipated average year for wildfires to outpacing the five-year average before the calendar had even hit June?
For one, when those comments were made in April, there was “significant snow cover” and an anticipated snow melt to be complemented by spring rainfall, Pritchard explained.
“Unfortunately, those rains did not come, and they still have not come,” he said. “So we went from what we were forecasting as a relatively regular fire season to an unprecedented one because we’ve not had the rainfall, and precipitation is not in the future as well. We need rain.”
No reprieve in sight
Danielle Desjardins, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), confirmed Friday that no significant rainfall is expected for a while.
“There isn’t a whole lot of reprieve in the foreseeable future,” noted Desjardins.
Despite some showers in the forecast, none are set to hit the larger fires in the north.
And what rain is coming is modest.
“There are some showers and even a little bit of lightning with this cold front moving through the north,” Desjardins said Friday, looking at weather patterns anticipated over the coming days.
About five millimetres — “10 at best” — is anticipated by ECCC. From Sunday to Monday, a weather pattern is expected to drop between 20 and 30 millimetres of rain, but Desjardins said that rainfall would occur north of the large fires.
“Beyond that, it looks like it’s pretty dry over the prairies from Monday to Friday,” she said.
The cold also brings a shift in wind patterns, which means air-caution advisories for most of the province.
“We’re going to see a wind shift from the southerly winds that kind of kept the smoke in the northern half of the province. That is going to shift to the northwest, so that’s bringing the wildfire smoke down further south,” said Desjardins.
Beware of zombies
As the spring wildfire season erupts, the SPSA says there have been no “zombie” fires detected that are contributing to the current firefighting efforts.
So-called zombie fires smoulder under snow through the winter months, slowly burning underbrush, peat and other organic fuel while waiting for warmer weather and winds to whip flames back into the skies.
Alberta and British Columbia have dealt with such fires, but the SPSA says none have been reported so far in Saskatchewan.
alsalloum@postmedia.com
