2023-Nov-02
Ontario Marks the End of a Challenging Wildfire Season
Toronto smoke comparison by wendyapricots – https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/
We got very lucky this year in Georgian Bay! October 31 marked the end of one of the most challenging wildfire seasons Ontario has ever faced. This season began unusually with extremely dry conditions leading to high and extreme forest fire ratings very early in May. June and July included a 41-day Restricted Fire Zone (RFZ) order for the entire Fire Region of Ontario and there was a lot of severe atmospheric smoke.
Ontario saw 741 fires, 51 fires more than the 10-year average, and 441,474 hectares (~1,090,906 acres) of forest burned between April and October. That is almost three times as many hectares as the 10-year average. Of the 741 wildlands fires, the West Parry Sound and Muskoka areas experienced 113 incidents this season, 85 of which were in Muskoka and the remaining 28 in West Parry Sound.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry is responsible for fire management on over 90 million hectares of Crown land in Ontario. Aside from protecting Ontario this season, Ontario fire management personnel were able to deploy equipment and more than 600 fire management personnel to support firefighting efforts in Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Quebec, Yukon, Nova Scotia and Minnesota.