Fire hazard on the rise again

With multiple fire starts over the weekend, Northwestern Ontario is seeing a return to “moderate” and “high” fire hazards.
“There’s been an increase in dryer weather. We’ve seen sunny conditions for the last few days, and anticipate the continuation of sunnier, drier weather the new few days,” Ministry of Natural Resources fire information officer Travis Moffatt said this morning.
“With the current weather, our relative humidity has been low, resulting in a very dry air mass,” Moffatt added. “And that’s rapidly drying the forest out, as well.
“With the current conditions we have, combined with the dry summer we’ve had, any rain that we saw last week will quickly dry out and we’ll see a continual rise in the forest fire hazard.”
Meanwhile, seven new forest fires were reported in the region yesterday, including three in Nipigon District, two in Kenora District, and one each in the Dryden and Thunder Bay districts.
The Dryden fire and one of the Kenora ones were declared “out” by this morning, noted Moffatt.
He added the others were relatively small (0.1 hectares) and currently contained.
Saturday saw one new fire in Sioux Lookout District while a single blaze was reported Friday in Red Lake District.
The total number of active fires in the region currently sits at 32, burning nearly 11,735 hectares. The total number of fires to date is 989, covering 18.228.6 ha.