2023 wildfire numbers surpass all of 2022

Wildfires in Nova Scotia this year are not only up considerably over this same timeframe in 2022, but they've already surpassed all of last year's total. And the continued dry weather means things will likely continue to get worse.

Only two months into wildfire season, there had been just under 180 fires reported so far as of May 28. That's up from 60 fires from near the same time last year, and the 152 reported in all of 2022. While 3,311 hectares burned in 2022 in the same timeframe, most of that was from the Horseshoe Lake wildfire in Yarmouth County.

Prior to this newspaper's deadline on Monday, a wildfire in the Barrington/ Clyde River area, that had spread to other areas, had burned 6,270 hectares with no signs of stopping.

There have also been other wildfires previous to the new ones that broke out last week. Those included one near Hassett in Digby County and another in Little Harbour, Shelburne County that burned 118 and 56 hectares, respectively, and took each took about five days to contain.

Another major fire began burning in Tantallon in HRM. On Sunday, people were evacuated from neighbourhoods and subdivisions as a wildfire raged, damaging and destroying homes in its

path.

“We're well above our usual average (to this point),” Kara McCurdy, a fire prevention officer with the province's Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, said prior to all of the wildfire activity of the past weekend. “But it's what happens in spring. It's always the time of year when we get the most calls. Then things start to green up and it slows down. Then picks up again in August.”

She said what's significant this year is that the duff moisture code, which measures the moisture content in the

medium-sized wood and other decaying matter on the forest floor, is high to extreme, meaning there isn't a lot of moisture. That contributes to more intense and faster-moving fires.

“That's unusual for May,” McCurdy said. “We used to see those numbers in July, so it's ahead of schedule.”

She said the build-up index, which measures a combination of the dryness of all materials, has also been very high in Shelburne, Annapolis and parts of Digby and Lunenburg counties.

“Those are going to drive the fire spread and the difficulty in suppressing it because it's going to burn deeper into the ground than it usually would this time of year,” McCurdy said.

She said Environment Canada's recent precipitation status shows it is abnormally dry in the province and river water levels are much below normal.

This is also the time of year when trees are using all their energy for spring leaf development and growth, meaning there is less moisture in them which adds to the dryness of the fuels.

“There's a combination of things going on right now,” she said.

She said there needs to be substantial, steady rain for three-plus days to have any positive impact in the forests and wooded/brush areas. A day of rain here or there isn't much help, as the rain just runs off the hard, dry ground.

With evacuations during the Barrington Lake and Tantallon fires, and the Shelburne County Little Harbour fire burning perilously close to houses, McCurdy said this should serve as a reminder to people to make sure the area around their homes is properly maintained to decrease the risk of it being affected by a wildfire, and to have a 72-hour emergency kit ready in case an evacuation is ordered.

She also said people need to check and abide by burning restrictions from the department and from municipalities as they pertain to when, where and how they can have a fire and what they can burn – and most significantly, when they can't burn.