Reductions in forest fire starts and area burned have contributed to another favorable forest fire season in Newfoundland and Labrador. Despite extended periods of warm, dry weather throughout the province the number of fire starts during 2021 was below the 10-year average for the third consecutive year and the amount of forest land burned was the second lowest recorded in the past 10 years.
In 2021, 84 fires burned a total of 338 hectares of forest land. These figures are significantly lower than the provincial 10-year average of 111 fires and 30,630 hectares burned.
The vigilance of citizens to protect our forests and use of online forest fire forecast maps combined with greater focus on forest fire prevention, ongoing firefighter training and strategic positioning of fire suppression resources are having positive outcomes.
Forest firefighters and forest fire Incident Management Team (IMT) members with the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture also assisted with fire suppression efforts in other parts of Canada over the course of the 2021 forest fire season. Twenty-two firefighters and five water bombers were deployed to Ontario, nine IMT members were deployed to British Columbia and one water bomber assisted in New Brunswick. In total the Department filled eight separate resource orders through the Mutual Aid Resource Sharing agreement with the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
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“The continued reduction in fire starts is very encouraging and is a testament to the department’s forest fire prevention public awareness efforts and timely deployment of forest firefighting staff and resources. I commend our dedicated and professional team of forest firefighters for their ongoing fire suppression efforts both here at home and when called upon to help in other parts of the country.”
Honourable Derrick Bragg
Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture
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Learn more
Forest Fire Season 2021
Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre
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Media contact
Craig Renouf
Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture
637-2923, 640-6922
craigrenouf@gov.nl.ca