THUNDER BAY — After experiencing remarkably contrasting fire seasons in the preceding two years, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry hopes to be well-prepared for whatever the 2023 wildfire season might bring.
Although there's lots of snow on the ground across Northwestern Ontario, the ministry's Aviation, Forest Fires and Emergency Services staff are facing a hurdle that's unrelated to weather conditions.
Fire information officer Chris Marchand at the Northwest Regional Fire Management Centre in Dryden said the agency is still trying to recruit people to fill out its firefighting crews.
The usual deadline for applying for a job as a fire ranger is mid-April, but that's being extended to the middle of May.
"It can be a challenge to fill all the positions we have with qualified candidates, so we've made some efforts to reduce barriers for those who might want to get involved in wildland firefighting," Marchand said in an interview.
This year, new fire ranger recruits will be eligible for reimbursement for the basic cost of taking a firefighting course.
Marchand said Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry outreach staff have also been attending various job fairs and other public events to try to generate interest in wildland firefighting as a job.
"Like any other employer, it's a very competitive job market at the moment, and we're certainly not alone in experiencing that issue. So we're doing what we can...to make it easy for people to consider working the summer in wildland firefighting."
The ministry experienced a similar recruiting challenge last year, and ended up with fewer firefighters than usual, but the 2022 fire season proved to be one the least active in memory.
That provided relief after the previous year, which had fires that burned the largest-ever amount of forest in Northwestern Ontario in a single season.
Extreme drought conditions in 2021 were largely to blame.
Marchand said even though the bush is likely to stay snow-covered for awhile, conditions can change significantly over just a few weeks, and spring fires can move quite quickly through dead grass and dry bush between the retreat of the snow cover and green-up.
He also pointed out that spring fires are "almost exclusively human caused, and tend to show up near structures, which really requires a quick response."
On the positive side from a firefighting perspective, Marchand said the long-range weather outlook for much of Northwestern Ontario is for cooler-than-normal weather.
"This could help us hang onto the snow cover that we have for a little longer, which is a benefit in helping to moderate the spring fire hazard."
There may be an exception, though, in the far west part of the region near the Manitoba border, where it may be drier than usual this spring.
Marchand noted that that area was one of the worst hotspots in the 2021 fire season.
A few days of very mild weather are forecast for next week, likely leading to a rapid thaw.
"A nice slow melt is always better than a quick melt, where runoff can go over frozen ground and into waterways and not have much effect," Marchand said. "We want that snow to disappear slowly, melt with rainfall, and soak the ground well."