The fires in eastern Canada have been extremely hot and dry during the last 10 years, according to Cheng, Taylor, and heaviest precipitation forecast
The rain in the forecast could give a respite to those who are dealing with the fires in eastern Canada, and help firefighters put out the smoke in the air.
It’ll be about 10 to 20 millimeters — less than an inch — of water. The impact it will have on the fires will depend on the size of the blaze, which could grow before the rain.
A return to poorer air quality is always a possibility, Cheng said. A high concentration of fine particles causes the thick orange haze that dominated New York City on Wednesday. The severity of the wildfire, and wind, can help dispersed toxic particulates, which is a key factor for their intensity.
On Friday night, the Alberta Emergency Alert system instructed some residents of Yellowhead County and the town of Edson to evacuate, describing the fires as “becoming increasingly unpredictable.”
During this time of year, Canada has an abnormal amount of fires that occur in May through October. The country is on track to have its worst wildfire season on record, according to the U.S. National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. Quebec has reported 446 fires this year. Over the last 10 years, the average number of fires for this same date is 212.
There was not a lot of rain and soils were dry, so fires could grow quickly and wreak havoc in places where they are rare, like the east coast of Nova Scotia. More than 4 million hectares of forest have already burnt across Canada this year — double the historical average and a number that is usually reached much later in the season (see ‘Early start’).
Despite the huge areas that have already burned this year, we are not out of the woods yet. For months, the fires could continue depending on the weather. “If the warm dry weather continues, there is lots of fuel in the forest to burn,” says Taylor. It will not be exhausted soon.
“The number one cause is the weather,” says Anthony Taylor, a forest-management specialist at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. Fires in Canada are a regular occurrence, but this spring has been very dry and warm. That’s particularly true in eastern Canada, which had around 50% less spring precipitation than usual, he says. In western Canada, May was the warmest and driest on record, says David Phillips, a climatologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada.
There isn’t a good explanation for this year’s spring. The Canadian Forest Service’s Piyush Jain believes it is not related to an El Nio climate pattern that warms the eastern Pacific Ocean and brings warmer temperatures to other parts of the world. The effects of an El Nio will not be observable until later in the year according to the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. As the planet warms, extreme weather is not surprising. “Climate change is definitely a factor that is causing these extreme conditions to occur more frequently,” says Jain.