May brings New Brunswick’s first burn restriction as wildfire season underway

New Brunswick has been under its seasonal fire watch for nearly two weeks.

For nearly two weeks now, New Brunswick has been under its seasonal fire watch with the start of May bringing the first “no burn” restriction for the majority of the province.

“The grasses are dry - the dead standing grass that grew last year – and so that dries out very quickly,” said Roger Collet, a wildfire prevention officer.

“It can rain overnight, into the morning, and all we need is the sun to come out in the afternoon and a bit of a drying wind and within an hour or two those fuels are ready to go and that’s what we’re seeing and so it’ll cross overtop of water if the grass is standing up above the water.”

The province monitors fire conditions starting the third Monday of April until the end of October every year.

Collet says this year is trending just above the 10-year average, but still slightly below what New Brunswick experienced last year.

“We’re somewhere around, I think it was, 90 or so fires so far this year. Actually, some of those are coming before the first day of fire season, but the majority of them have happened in the last two weeks. Yesterday alone I think it was 14 fires that we had to respond to,” he said.

“Generally, in the springtime, what we have is a bit of a bump in fire season I guess. Probably about 70 per cent of the fires that we have are caused during springtime while people are starting to clean up their yards.”

Several factors play a role including daily weather conditions such as precipitation and humidity, how dry the ground and debris is, and whether or not the trees have a full set of green leaves or not.

The province has three levels when it comes to burning notices: green for open, yellow for restricted burn where fires are permitted between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., and red for completely closed.

“What happens now is we have all the winter kill, so all that dead grass, the dead leaves and the new stuff, the new grass, the new leaves haven’t grown yet so it is a crucial time of year to make sure that we respect those restrictions,” said Moncton Fire Chief Conrad Landry.

“The idea also is that these embers fly, so it’s not just the fact that your grass might be green, your land might be wet, it’s that we can make a fire and the embers go to someone else’s grass that’s not as wet or green or another field or building.”

Overall, Landry says he expects it to be a busy season ahead.

“I’m going off the top of my head. I know we had two grass fires so far, no forest fires, fire pits and bonfires it’s probably a couple a day, so it’s every day, every week, every month,” he said.

On top of the provincial burn restrictions, he says there are local bylaws that people need to abide by as well.

“For us, if you have a fire pit, you’ve got to make sure you have a spark arrestor over your pit, you have to have a permit, it has to be away from compostables at least three metres,” he said.

“You’re only allowed to burn between 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. when it’s allowed to burn, so those are all the restrictions and the reason there’s bylaws is for the safety of all.”

In Riverview, fire chief Robin True says it’s not uncommon for them to respond to eight to 20 calls a year. Adding they’ve already been to a few calls, including one grass fire, before the fire season officially began.

“Not too far away from anybody’s home you’re going to find dead vegetation in the outlying areas, dead grass and the litter on the ground obviously doesn’t take long for that to dry out,” said True.

“Really, until we’re deeper into June and you start to get green leaves on the trees, it helps a bit, but during the month of May it’s very easy to start a forest fire here in the province under the right conditions.”

He says the wind conditions and weather overall plays a huge factor in the season ahead.

“If it’s a small, contained fire, it may take just one crew and one apparatus, but if it’s a larger grass fire or a forest fire it can take multiple fire departments and dozens of firefighters and of course assistance from DNR to combat those fires,” said True.

The New Brunswick Fire Watch is updated daily at 2 p.m. during the wildfire season and with conditions changing rapidly depending on the weather, experts say it’s something that needs to be checked every day before you burn.

Experts say it’s hard to make predictions about the season ahead since daily conditions play such a crucial role. The best advice they have is listen to the restrictions in place, visit Fire Smart Canada for more tips, and stay vigilant.

For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.