FIRE

update:

November 2, 2011: Still 15 forest fires burning in Ontario.  One Sioux Lookout District fire burned a record 141,000 hectares .We would have to go back at least 50 years in record keeping to find a year when more forest was lost to fire in Northern Ontario. April 1 to November 1, 2011  = 632,533 hectares lost to 1,330 fires in Ontario.  The Northwest Region of Ontario accounted for 908 of those fires and 629,391 hectares.

October 14, Pukaskwa  Burn put off till November 2011 because of conditions.   Thank goodness they followed their plan, which was to monitor conditions right up to burn time...something the newspaper article in September (below) did not comply with, it had stated they would burn because they planned it for six years.  I see where Riding Mountain (Manitoba) planned burn went out of control and covered 2000 hectares before they closed in on it.(Oct 11, 2011) That's 5000 acres or about 8 square miles. As of Sept. 19, 2011, 4,216 fires burned 2,553,383.32 hectares in Canada. Now you see why CPAWS want so much forest for their Caribou to range in case of natural disturbances. Question: If their designated range burns, will they want more?

September 14:
Pukaskwa National Park is going to deliberately burn an area of forest beside Hattie Cove Campground...to show park visitors "how forests regenerate naturally".

Wednesday, September 14, 2011 The Chronicle -Journal, page A4 News, Carl Clutchey reports for the North Shore Bureau.

Well, I certainly stirred up conflict with this post.
"Hasn't anyone in the Parks service looked sideways around White River on Highway 17? Or by Beardmore and Macdiarmid on Highway 11? Or up the Black Sturgeon Road?  Those were fires of 1999.  If you want to see how a forest grows back there are thousands of sites out there already, why create one for show.?"

As he's stated in an e-mail to me, "I haven't seen any signs on the highway publicising when the fire happened." Rightly so, and maybe this is where Tourism and Natural Resources, in Ontario, should step up to the plate to reassure the public that forests regenerate, both naturally or un-naturally (seeded from the air or re-planted with stock trees) by putting up billboards. But they should do it for the "logged" site also to be fair.

The Local Citizens's Committee urged companies years ago to put up signs explaining forest management so that those people driving the highways understood what they were seeing.. Never happened. In the bush roads, yes. Highways, no.
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Burning for renewal of the forest is one thing; deliberate burning for show and tell is quite another. And on top of that the article states that this burn was planned for six years and the dry condition of the forest was not going to stop them. So I got upset and strayed from my "education mandate".