Thanks Bijou. No risk where I live, unless my idiot neighbor decides to shoot fireworks into the ravine behind our homes like he did last year! Things are dry here. The smoke from the (far away) fires in Quebec were an issue earlier in the week, and DS#2 thought the house was on fire (due to smell) when he woke up on day 1 of the event. Some good soaking rains are in the forecast starting Monday.
Like Suz wrote, this is more difficult for the Maritimes and Quebec, where it’s not the norm.
In the past 10 years the ‘biggest’ fires by sq km have been Australia (4), Canada and Russia (2 each) California and Bolivia (1 each). For loss of life, it’s Australia and California.
Fire is part of the natural disturbance regime in the boreal forest, and there are huge tracks of uninhabited forest that require fire for renewal. It becomes a problem, of course, when the land management around communities does not take these events into consideration - similar to allowing the building of homes in flood zones. It’s lovely to have a home or cottage nestled amongst mature trees, or at the edge of a river - but there’s a risk.
