National Wildland Fire Situation Report

National Wildland Fire Situation Report

Archived reports

Current as of: May 1, 2024

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

Priority fires

There are no priority fires at the time of this report.

Interagency mobilization

Canada is at national preparedness level 1, indicating conditions are not favourable to support significant wildland fire activity in most agencies and resource capability is adequate with little or no mobilization of resources occurring through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

The number of fires is well above average for this time of year, and below the 10-year average for area burned for this time of year.

At the time of this report there is no personnel, equipment or aircraft mobilized through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The United States is at preparedness level 1, which indicates little to no mobilization of resources occurring through the National Interagency Forest Fire Centre (NIFC).

Weekly Synopsis

In British Columbia there are fire restrictions across Cariboo, Northwest and Prince George Fire Centres. Alberta has fire bans and restrictions across the north, northwest and northeast regions of the province. New Brunswick has a province wide category 1 burning restriction. In Nova Scotia burning is only allowed between 7:00 pm and 8:00 am in Antigonish, Cape Breton, Guysborough, Halifax, Hants, Pictou, Richmond, Shelburne, Victoria and Yarmouth Counties. Prince Edward Island requires burning permits based on the daily Fire Weather Index.

Northwest Territories, Yukon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador have no restrictions currently in place.

The 2024 fire season is starting out differently than 2023 with a fading El Niño and expected La Niña arriving during the summer. While extensive drought still covers much of Canada, a shot of heavy precipitation is inundating central Alberta, the region that led off 2023’s large fire activity. This storm system has produced rain and snow and is currently driving the moisture into southern Alberta. Moisture feeding into this system is also producing bands of precipitation across the central and southern Prairies east of Alberta. Other systems are giving showers to the Great Lakes region, and Labrador and eastern Quebec. Northern portions of the Territories, Manitoba, Ontario, northern Quebec, and Labrador are either snow-covered or have lost snow but have not started seasonal fire weather calculations yet.

Prognosis

Dry air prevails in the southern Northwest Territories over the next few days and gradually sinks into western Canada over the May 4-5 weekend. This will kick up wind in the Prairies but fire weather indexes in these areas will still be recovering from recent precipitation so fire problems should remain minimal. The storm system that gave the heavy precipitation in Alberta moves off across Hudson Bay, and a secondary low trailing south of it gives some showers in Ontario and Quebec. Some showers will move across the Atlantic region from this system on Monday or Tuesday (May 6-7) but Nova Scotia and southern New Brunswick may stay drier, being on the bottom edge of the line of showers.?

Weekly graphs (current as of: May 1, 2024)