Dry fall may spark more wildfires in Alberta next spring
Drier than usual fall conditions may increase chances of the eruption of wildfires this spring as minimal snow coverage lowers moisture levels.
Compared with last year, Alberta has been seeing higher temperatures and lower precipitation, said Justin Shelley, operational meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Edmonton is moving into a warm and dry pattern the second week of November, with temperatures between 5 C and 7 C above normal for this time of year.
“We're seeing our daytime temperatures increase into the mid to high single digits for daytime highs and overnight lows remaining only a few degrees below zero,” said Shelley.
The deficit in precipitation could increase the risk of wildfires, he said.
“So, by the time we head into the next fire season — next spring — then we already are starting at a precipitation deficit, which could in theory increase the wildfire potential,” he said.
The dry conditions prompted Leduc County, 35 kilometres south of Edmonton, to issue a fire advisory on Nov. 1, asking people to notify Leduc County Fire Services as a precautionary measure in advance of setting any open burns.
What conditions look like come spring 2024 is what is of most concern to Alberta Wildfire, said information officer Derrick Forsythe.
“We can also still get lots of sufficient snowfall to mitigate any risk in the spring,” Forsythe said. “We won't know until we actually see what the precipitation over the winter months is going to look like.”
Factors that determine the severity of wildfires in the spring include the amount of snow the province gets over winter, how long it stays on the ground and how quickly it recedes.
Alberta in June lifted its provincial state of emergency triggered by a severe 2023 wildfire season. On Saturday, there were 68 wildfires in the province, with 14 being held and 53 under control.
Alberta Wildfire will be monitoring those fires “over the winter and that's why we're going to get at them as soon as we can in the spring next year.”
Piyush Jain, a research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service, said Alberta's wildfires are mainly caused by three factors: dry conditions, human activity and the spring window.
He says Alberta doesn't get as much snow in the winter as other parts of the country and that gives the ground less melting snow to absorb and become moist when temperatures rise quickly in the spring.
“So, you think about like Fort Mcmurray, Slave Lake ... all of these types of events (wildfires) have all occurred in the spring, in May essentially. And that's a real danger period for Alberta. This is actually a relatively dry part of the country,” Jain said.
“So, if you have a dry fall and then the snow comes and it just sits there and then it melts in the spring, the ground is still very dry from the year before. So, that is something that happens a lot in Alberta.”
Jain notes that it is also a “strong ” El Nino year, which means warmer and drier than normal conditions in Western Canada. He is concerned Alberta might see another severe wildfire season in 2024.
“This winter, you get less snowfall occurring in Western Canada,” Jain said.
El Nino occurs when surface waters in parts of the Pacific Ocean warm and push east, toward the west coast of the Americas, causing changes in the jet stream across the Pacific. That is a reversal of the past three years with La Nina, which brought cold water to the coast of South America while warm water moved to the west.