THUNDER BAY -- The 2016 forest fire season has officially wrapped up, according to the Ministry of Natural Resouces, and it was another fairly quiet year, both in the province and in the Northwest region.
The fire season started out very active.
There were large fires in Greenstone, Kenora, Thunder Bay and Nipigon all occurring around the May long weekend.
This year there were 215 fires in the Northwest.
That's down from last year which saw 352 forest fires, although this year 45,000 more hectares burned.
The year 2014 still holds the record low of just 130 fires and 12,000 hectares burned.
The recent high was in 2011, which saw over 900 blazes in the Northwest Region.
Fire Operations Technician Ian Monteith said there's a common cause for many fires this year.
"Fifty per cent of forest fires are started by humans and 50 per cent is started by lightening," Monteith said.
"This year 74 per cent of forest fires provincially were started by humans and we've seen an increase over the last few years, so that being said we want to promote fire prevention."
Monteith added that fires costs everyone in the province money and it makes their jobs a lot harder, because human caused fires are in urban interface areas where there's a lot of people around.
Over $100 million has been spent on firefighting activities within the Province.
(TBT News)
