N.W.T.'s 2018 forest fire season could look similar to last year with 'fairly vigorous' late season

The Northwest Territories' 2018 forest fire season could look quite similar to last year's, with a slow start giving way to a dry, difficult end of the summer, according to the territory's director of fire operations.

Richard Olsen gave his first briefing of the year to media Monday, where he said it will be a relatively dry spring.

"But as we progressin the season, the chance that we're going to get more severe fires in a larger area seems to extend itself over most of the South Slave, Deh Cho and NorthSlave areas, and transitions itself up into portions of the Sahtu," he said.

"We'reexpecting fairly vigorous fire behaviour once the frost and snow completely kicks out of the ground, and lightning or other means of fire ignition allow for fires to exist and move on the landscape."

There were relatively fewforest fires last May and June in the N.W.T., butconditions gave way to a busy July and August.

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In AugustOlsen saidover 1 million hectares burned in the territory in 2017, but duringMonday's briefing, hecorrected those numbers to just over 860,000 hectares. But even with that correction, the 2017 season was the fifth most active in the territory in the last 30 years the N.W.T.'s 20-year average is just over 500,000 hectares burned.

Olsen cautioned that the government's forecasts areforfire conditions, and not fires themselves.

"You can't predict lightning," he said.

"It's important to note that we live in a fire environment. Fires are natural in our landscape," said Olsen. "Any fire can be of significance if it affects a value, and so we really need to be cognizant of the fact that we need to monitor all fire starts."

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The territory's forest fire crewsare back at work beginning today, said Olsen; rotor wing aircraft will begin coming online next week, and planes from the territory's air tanker fleet will be ready for the season starting May 22.

All of the N.W.T.'s forest fire fighting aircraft will be online by the second week of June, Olsen said. And he said the division's staffing levels or strategies haven't changed from last year.

"Overall, we're fairly confident with the resources we have in place," he said.