GFMC: Forest Fires in Canada, 12 September 2000

over the last 24 hours:	4 new fires for 37 hectares
season summary:	5,065 fires for 627,337 hectares

CIFFC National Situtation Report (4 September 2000)
The month of August has been one of busiest ever at CIFFC. With over 1300 Canadian personnel, 300 MK 3 pump kits, 625 sprinkler heads and other equipment, coming from all over Canada, this has been the largest mobilization to the United States in CIFFC history. We currently have 668 personnel in the US, with some demobilization taking place tomorrow. With current weather conditions in the US, mobilization from Canada has diminished. Personnel that had been mobilized to British Columbia has been returned back to the lending agencies and with the cooler temperatures and precipitation, the forest fire season in Canada is slowly coming to an end.

National Forest Fire Situation Report (6 September 2000, updated every Friday)
The fire season in Canada has lasted slightly longer than usual, despite the relatively small area burned. Over the past week, Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories have experienced significant area burned, while BC has brought a large umber of small fires under control. The large fires in the United States continue to burn, although most of the fires in the northwest are now under control thanks to rain over the past week. These fires are not expected to be extinguished for another week or two at least, and may continue to burn until the first snowfall. Resource requirements for these fires remain high, but are declining.

current	uncontrolled	controlled	active modified
current	1	60	55
	2000 (to date)	10-year average	in % of normal	Prescribed burning
Number	5,023	7,681	65%	41
Area (ha)	627,202	2,408,562	26%	7,881

Fire Monitoring, Mapping, and Modelling (FireM3)
FireM3 is a collaboration of the Canadian Forest Service and the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing. Through the Map Link at the FireM3 web site you can access daily hotspot images. An Internet Map Server, which is like a simple GIS running on the host computer, allows you to zoom in on any fire or other area of interest and view the image and map data at full (1 km) resolution. You can also click on any fire and get information about that fire.

The satellite image, the daily fire overview map and the season-to-date
hotspot map for 10 September 2000 display the current significant fire events
(Source: FireM3)

The Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System is a part of the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System and consists of six components that account for the effects of fuel moisture and wind on fire behavior. The first three components are fuel moisture codes and are numerical ratings of the moisture content of litter and other fine fuels, the average moisture contentof loosely compacted organic layers of moderate depth, and the average moisture content of deep, compact organic layers. The remaining three components are fire behavior indexes which represent the rate of fire spread, the fuel available for combustion, and the frontal fire intensity; their values rise as the fire danger increases. For futher information please see the Summary Information.

Fine Fuel Moisture Code	Duff Moisture Code	Drought Code
Initial Spread Index	Buildup Index	Fire Weather Index
	Fire Danger Rating

The Canadian Forest Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System is an other part of the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System and provides quantitative estimates of head fire spread rate, fuel consumption, fire intensity, and fire description. With the aid of an elliptical fire growth model, it gives estimates of fire area, perimeter, perimeter growth rate, and flank and back fire behavior. For futher information please see the Summary Information.

Foliar Moisture Content	Surface Fuel Consumption	Rate of Spread
Total Fuel Consumption	Head Fire Intensity	Fire Type

The Saskatchewan Daily Forest Fire Situation Report (9 September 2000) is listing all forest fires currently burning in Saskatchewan and their current status. This report also gives statistics on the total number of fires to date. The whole report and further information can be accessed at the fire management website of "Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management" (SERM).

fires burning in the province today:	3
extinguished in the past 24 hours:	1
new fires:	1
total number of fires to date this year:	400
total up to this date last year:	723
five year average for this date:	696

British Columbia Forest Service Wildfire Report (5 September 2000):
Fire season winds down
VICTORIA – The 2000 wildfire season is winding down quickly as cool, unsettled weather dominates the province.
The B.C. Forest Service has been able to limit the damages and costs associated with wildfires this year.
In early August, near-drought conditions and intense thunderstorms in the southern Interior resulted in 630 fires caused by lightning within 15 days. Accurate detection and quick deployment of resources enabled the Forest Service to maintain a high initial attack success rate. Over 96 per cent of all fires were contained at under four hectares. Of those that grew beyond that, the largest was contained at 380 hectares.
Residents near six wildfires were evacuated this year, but in all cases, Forest Service crews managed to suppress fires before major damage or injury occurred.
All larger fires in B.C. are now in the mop-up or patrol stage. All fire camps have been demobilized, and many seasonal firefighters will be released for the year.
A total of 1,488 wildfires have been reported in the province to date this year, and 16,400 hectares has been burned. Almost 70 per cent of these fires were in the south Okanagan and southeastern part of the province. The total number of wildfires reported so far this year is close to average.

Number of Fires Burning:	48
Number of New Fires (Lightning):	0
Number of New Fires (Human Caused):	2
Total Lightning Fires:	940
Total Human Caused Fires:	544
Total Fires to Date:	1,484
Total Area Burned (ha):	16,259