Crews have dealt with fewer wildfires in Saskatchewan in 2020

While most people would be lamenting a way-below-average year, for Saskatchewan’s Public Safety Agency, that’s a good thing in 2020.

So far this year, wildfire crews have had to deal with only 125 wildfires, less than a third of the five-year average of 405.

“The fires that we’ve seen this year have been relatively small and our crews have been able to contain them quickly, and that has resulted in only one large fire which was early this spring, and that was the English Fire that was located east of Prince Albert,” Steve Roberts with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said Friday.

He said these are some of the lowest numbers the agency has seen in 10 years.

Roberts said it’s primarily because of the mild and wet weather in the north this year.

He said crews have also had to deal with fewer man-made fires.

“Some of that is related to COVID in the province restricting people’s movements and having people staying at home or close to home, but also to the fact that unfavourable, rainy weather is not conducive to folks being out on the landscape,” said Roberts.

Roberts did say more people will be out on the land in the fall with hunting season coming up and harvest happening as well.

With much less to do this year, the fire crews were repurposed to help deal with flooding in northern Saskatchewan.

Roberts couldn’t say how much money might have been saved with less demand on the wildfire front because everything is budgeted out of the same agency.

“Any savings or time saved on fires this year was expended on COVID relief and flooding so we will not have the final numbers to the end of the season,” said Roberts.

Like everyone else in the province, the crews did have to change how they work because of COVID-19.

Roberts said crews were staggered so they wouldn’t overlap, meals were served individually instead of buffet-style, and crews were given masks when social distancing wasn’t possible.