Start of Wildfire Season Better Than Last Year, but Risk Is High as Drought Continues

The start to wildfire season has been far less dramatic than it was last year but the risk of hot, dry weather and severe fires remains high, officials warned on May 9. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported around 90 fires burning as of noon on May 9, including 12 classified as being out of control. “At the same time last year the situation was quite different,” said Jean-François Duperré, the director of emergency planning for the government operations centre at Public Safety Canada. On May 9, 2023, there were more than 200 fires burning and almost 50 of them were out of control. Most of those were in Alberta, which saw unusually warm weather in late April and early May of last year, with almost no rain....