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CANADA: June 4, 2007
TORONTO - A winter of unusually little snow has brought five times the normal level of forest fires to parts of Central Canada, prompting other provinces to fly in extra help, and bringing small scale evacuations of rural settlements.
Quebec has already reached a "critical" burn level several times this year and is experiencing a five-fold increase in burned land from its five-year average, officials said.
"It's not unprecedented, but in recent years we've had much less fire activity than we've seen this year," said Jacques Nadeau, spokesman for the Forest Fire Protection Society of Quebec, which puts out fires for the provincial government.
In Northwestern Ontario, drought-like conditions in April and May nearly doubled its 10-year fire average, said regional fire information officer Travis Moffatt.
"We've had a very busy spring fire season, and that's directly attributable to the very dry forest conditions that we've seen," Moffatt said from Dryden, Ontario.
This past winter was the second driest on record for Quebec and Ontario, leaving little moisture as the snow melted. Camp fires, sparks from trains and lighting all caused fires.
The Forest Products Association of Canada, which represents Canada's biggest producers of forest products, said operations in Ontario and Quebec have seen the most fire-related shutdowns, but the impact was limited and in line with previous years.
"In some cases it's obvious that there will be a loss of wood ... but we do not have the data to know if it will have a big impact on the industry," said Jacques Gauvin, forestry director for the Quebec Forest Industry Council, which represents producers such as Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and Bowater Inc. in the province.
Canada is home to 10 percent of the world's forests, and the forest industry is the country's largest industrial employer.
Story by Jonathan Spicer
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
