The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency updated the province's residents yesterday on the currently ongoing wildfire season, as crews are working to get a number of those contained. Currently, Saskatchewan has seen 205 wildfires year to date, with 21 of those currently active across the province.
The year-to-date number is much higher than last year, which was 165, with the five-year average much lower at 124.
Steve Roberts, Vice President of Operations for the SPSA, says the numbers mean there's a lot of work to be done by their crews.
"So in summary, a very busy and aggressive spring wildfire season facing the province. We are currently under a weather system that is not favoured to wildfire suppression activities. So what we're experiencing is high daytime temperatures and warm nighttime temperatures, allowing fire activity to continue throughout the day and often into the evening."
With low humidities and fairly strong winds, Roberts warns that fires can move significant distances, causing fires to potentially grow even bigger.
Some of the specific areas that the SPSA is watching include the Shoe Fire near Lower Fishing Lakes, the Jay Smith Fire north of La Ronge, and the Tissue Fire west of La Ronge.
Through these fires and more, the SPSA says they have had to evacuate multiple communities.
Through all of their work, Roberts says that to make sure fires slow down in northern communities, they're instituting a fire ban for multiple areas inside the provincial forest.
"At this point in time, even though we have a large number of fires, important to note, almost every single one of those fires was a human-caused fire start and could have been prevented. So diligence and the need for things like the fire ban that's in place and cautionary activities by people that are either working, such as the timber industry, which is on shutdown now because of the extreme fire conditions, all are going to support us by not creating new fires in addition to the ones we already have."
Roberts thanked some of the help they received, from international crews from Alaska, interprovincial crews from Quebec, and all of the work that their staff and fire crews are putting in to help make sure these fires are put out.