National Wildland Fire Situation Report

National Wildland Fire Situation Report

Archived reports

Current as of: September 22, 2023

• Data courtesy of the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC).
• Check the Air Quality Health Index for air quality in your area.

Priority fires

British Columbia: • Kamloops Fire Centre: McDougall Creek (K52767), Bush Creek East (K21633), Downton Lake (K71649), Kidney Lake (K42967), Lower East Adams (K21620) • Coastal Fire Centre: Kookipi Creek (V11337) • Prince George Fire Centre: Great Beaver Lake (G51279), Whitefish Lake (G51564), Tatuk Lake (G41307), North Lucas Lake (G41502), Big Creek (G60666).

Interagency mobilization

Canada is at national preparedness level 4, indicating significant mobilization of resources through CIFFC is required to assist operations in the active agencies. British Columbia is at Preparedness Level 4, Northwest Territories and Alberta are at Preparedness Level 3, all other agencies are at Preparedness Level 1 or 2 or not reporting.

The number of fires is well above average for this time of year, and well above the average for area burned for this time of year. There were 123 net new fire starts.

At the time of this report personnel, and equipment have been mobilized to British Columbia, Alberta, Northwest Territories, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Parks Canada from across Canada and internationally. There are, Mexican, and South African, and American personnel active in Canada. The United States is at preparedness level 3, which indicates mobilization of resources nationally is required to sustain incident management operations in the active Geographic Areas.

Weekly Synopsis

British Columbia: The province of BC has rescinded the provincial State of Emergency.

The Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) has extended their Territorial State of Emergency until October 2, 2023.

There are no other wildfire-related provincial or territorial states of emergency across Canada at this time.

Active fires represented by satellite hotspots persist in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, northern Alberta, and northern Saskatchewan. Patchy cloud over much of western Canada may be obscuring some fires, and some light showers are present in a few regions. Cloud is prevalent in eastern Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces, but the region has been moist, so fire activity is minimal. Clear skies dominate other regions of the country. Forest moisture remains low from western Manitoba through much of British Columbia, although recent rain has lowered fire danger in the central Rocky Mountains, and along the Pacific coast, except the Fraser delta and southern Vancouver Island where fire danger remains elevated.

Prognosis

A low pressure trough stretching across the Prairies is being pulled apart, with one lobe moving into the northern USA and a second over coastal western Nunavut moving north. A high pressure ridge is slowly moving east across Ontario and western Quebec. Another storm system west of Newfoundland on Wednesday, September 20 is moving slowly into the Atlantic, but a lingering trough will give showers in eastern Canada for a couple days. As these systems move, a second Pacific ridge builds into western Canada, allowing warm and dry air to gradually move into the western provinces and southern Northwest Territories. Wind will accompany these changing air masses, likely increasing fire growth. As these systems move east, Pacific moisture and showers will start to wrap around the west side of the second ridge, which parks over Hudson Bay, late in the September 23-24 weekend. While active burning will continue at least a few more days in western Canada, this new influx of Pacific moisture may produce better rainfall in northern parts of the western provinces and the southern Northwest Territories early in the week of September 24. Mainly dry conditions will set up over the eastern half of Canada, although fire danger remains low in eastern Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces.

Weekly graphs (current as of: September 22, 2023)