Photo courtesy of Colton McKee

By Scott Roblin

Wildfire Risk

Increase in rainfall aiding in the fight against summer wildfires

Jul 8, 2020 | 5:57 PM

DUNMORE, AB – Rainy, wet, and cloudy conditions have been something that southeast Alberta residents have grown accustomed to in the early parts of summer.

Many of June and July’s hot and dry days have been replaced by a grey sky and rainfall, posing an annoyance for many looking to enjoy the weather outdoors.

Local fire crews are breathing a sigh of relief however, as their trucks have been parked for the most part over the last few months.

“This year has been extremely slow so far with wildland fires,” said Cypress County Fire chief Kelly Meyer. “The rain has helped quite a bit getting that good precipitation. Last year at this time we were pretty much full out fighting grass fires, but this year it’s a nice little break for us.”

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Just last July, a series of grass fires around Cypress County decimated an estimated 5,500 acres of land with smaller blazes popping up almost on a weekly basis.

Soil moisture levels in southern Alberta are quite a bit higher than the five-year average according to Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, with 84.2 percent of tests reading good or excellent.

That moisture in the ground is having a profound impact on Cypress County Fire’s ability to keep a blaze under control this summer.

“A fire can start in green grass, we’ve seen that before,” said Meyer. “But have that moisture in there, it slows the spread down quite a bit so that’s very helpful. Right now, today nothing will light. But, it keeps it at bay for a while until emergency responders can get there and extinguish the fire.”

Environment Canada are reporting 71.8 millimetres of rainfall in Medicine Hat during the month of June, which marks a slight increase from the monthly average of 65 millimetres.

June is historically known as Medicine Hat’s wettest month in precipitation, though warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada Blaine Lowry said

“Over the last couple of weeks we’ve had a blocking pattern,” said Lowry. “The jet stream that carries storm activity has been locked into a pattern that’s left western Canada in what we call an upper trough. So, that leads to shower and thunderstorm development which we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks.”

While Medicine Hat’s precipitation sits slightly above normal for this time of year, other areas of Alberta are seeing even higher levels of rainfall.

The corridor between Calgary and Edmonton has been especially prone to excessive rainfall this summer, along with the Grande Prairie region.

The break from wildland firefighting has allowed Meyer and his team to address other important parts of the job such as spring and summer flood mitigation, something they remain in communication with the county.

There is a chance however that the following years could revert back to the dry conditions and tinder-like vegetation.

“If history is going to repeat itself, this is where we’re going to have lots of growth,” said Meyer. “Next year if it does follow the cycle, we’ll have all that overgrowth and there could be problems with that.”

There is no word yet if the wet and rainy conditions will stretch into late July and August, though this blocking pattern is expected to stick around for at least the next couple of days.

“For the short-term like the next week or two, there are some signs that wetter than normal conditions will persist,” said Lowry. “Once we get into later July and into the beginning of August, the signals are a bit mixed. So, at that point I would lean towards normal conditions, which of course change from day to day in this part of the country.”