As forest fire season wound down on Monday, the regional Ministry of Natural Resources had only spent a third of its budget.
The MNR responded to 666 fires in Ontario over the season that burned 40,000 hectares. Even including the record-low 2014 season that saw only 300 fires, the 10-year provincial average is 1,100 fires per year that burn 110,000 hectares.
Suppressing those fires cost the MNR $31-million of its $92.8-million budget.
“We’ve had a lower fire hazard throughout the season,” said MNR acting fire operations supervisor Ian Monteith.
“We started out pretty hot and heavy in Kenora and Fort Frances districts with the spring fire hazard but as the season progressed, we had a lower fire season. The Far North continued to have a high to extreme fire hazard but that didn’t transcribe into very many fires.”
The MNR’s new fire management strategy played into savings as well. It calls for allowing forest fires to burn when they’re not near values such as forests marked for logging. There were three such fires in the Thunder Bay District in 2015, two of which occurred on islands north of the city.
Monteith said the policy changes also removed the firefighting 16-kilometre radius around First Nations.
“In Nipigon District there was a fire, which was within that 16-kliometre distance but there was a swamp in between the community and the fire so they let that fire go,” Monteith said.
“It was only until there were some smoke issues that they had to put out one section of the fire but they let the rest of the fire go.”
A thousand local fire rangers and support personnel fought fires in six other jurisdictions, including a first-ever venture into the United States for Northwestern Ontario’s birddogs and water bombers.
Those out-of-province contributions will bring Ontario another $6.9-million.
