Drastic Decrease in Wildfire Risk Being Seen Across Central and Southern Alberta
/
NOTE: YOU CAN CLICK ON THE MAP TO OPEN A ZOOMABLE IMAGE WHICH WILL BE EASIER TO READ.
Following the rain storm over the past couple of days, along with the snowfall from early last week, we have seen a considerable decrease in the wildfire risk across most of Central and Southern Alberta. Looking back 2 weeks to April 24th, following a series of evacuation alerts due to wildfires, most of Alberta was under high to extreme wildfire risk. At that time, there were over 70 active fires across the province, some of which were burning out of control for multiple days.
Fast forward to today and the number of active fires has been cut in half, thanks to the tireless efforts of the many firefighters and some assistance from Mother Nature. A large majority of the province is now at Low Risk, however the northwest is the major exception. In this region, we’re looking at a significant swath of High and Very High Risk from Grande Cache to the border of the NWT, along with an area of Extreme Risk centered over Grande Prairie. We’ve included a map of the wildfire risk from the 24th to compare it to the current risk.
NOTE: YOU CAN CLICK ON THE MAP TO OPEN A ZOOMABLE IMAGE WHICH WILL BE EASIER TO READ.
Looking ahead, precipitation looks to return to Southern and Central Alberta early next week and then finally into the Grande Prairie area later in the week. At this point, while still way too early for an accurate forecast, it appears that this precipitation may fall as snow.
