Ontario Forest Fires Twitter. August 16. Two types of helicopters are working on Kenora 51. This is a bucketing helicopter. Water is carried in its bucket, which is suspended underneath.
In many areas, including northwestern Ontario, the season started early and didn’t end until the final fire burned itself out in late October.
Environment Canada’s Senior Climatologist David Phillips says there were 25-hundred more wildfires than last year.
“The provincial government reports some very grim statistics for Ontario,” says Phillips. “It was the worst fire year on record and we saw five times the amount of land burned.”
The 2021 season surpassed the previous annual record for the amount of hectares burned in the province which was set in 1995. This season we burned over 793,000 hectares versus the previous record of 713,000 plus hectares
Red Lake, Madsen and Ear Falls community members remained in a holding pattern for about a month due to forest fire concerns.
Red Lake Fire 77 burned just 20 kilometres away from Madsen 30 kilometres west of Red Lake from July 12 to August 13.
Kenora Fire 51 also forced the evacuation of Wabaseemoong First Nation August 4, burning as close as 12 kilometeres away from the community.
Kenora 51 became the province’s largest fire on record, surpassing 2011’s Sioux Lookout 70, which was a fire of over 140,000 hectares.
The Kenora area blaze was mapped at 200,667 hectares.
Pikangikum, Poplar Hill and Deer Lake were also evacuated.
Phillips says the smoke from those fires also impacted several communities across Canada and into the U.S.
“In eastern cities, thousands and thousands of kilometers away from northwestern fires, it smelled like campfires in Toronto and Ottawa, and Windsor and Montreal. Nobody could seem to escape the kind of fires this year.”
Every part of Canada except for Atlantic Canada and Nunavut had fires burning out of control on July 10th.
Regional fire crews received emergency support from the United States, Mexico, Australia and across Canada.
Ontario received the assistance of nearly 500 fire personnel and 25 aircraft.
(With Files From Randy Thoms, Fort Frances)
