Residents around Whitehorse may have spotted columns of smoke rising throughout the city last week, as crews from Yukon Wildfire Management conducted prescribed burns.
Residents could hardly be faulted for wondering what exactly has been happening in local fields and forests, as crews clad in bright yellow shirts set large swaths of grass and brush ablaze.
Prescribed burns are intentionally set to mimic the natural fire cycle and reduce wildfire risk by removing dead, dying, and overgrown vegetation. Experts at Yukon Wildfire Management draw on years of data and on-the-ground experience to decide what areas to burn before creating what’s known as a burn plan.
Wildfire information officer Mike Fancie said the plan sets conditions for the burn, including weather that is dry enough for ignition but stable enough to carry smoke up and away from people.
Once a burn plan is approved, firefighters on the ground carry it out.
The News followed a team from the Southern Lakes Wildfire Base as it conducted a prescribed burn near Robert Service Way, south of downtown Whitehorse.
The day started with a crew briefing at Yukon Wildfire Management’s operations base at the airport. Roughly two dozen firefighters were present in the briefing room as crew leaders broke down every aspect of the day’s plan.
The burn area was a grassy field expected to produce moderate fire intensity because it had not burned the previous year. Crews reviewed the plan in detail, including hose setup, wetting nearby brush, the weather forecast and how the fire would be lit.
Each task during the burn operation was assigned to a team of firefighters and managed by a crew leader.
After nearly an hour of briefing and review, it was time to roll as firefighters hustled to load last needed bits of equipment, tossing extra rolls of hose and cans of diesel into truck boxes.
Once at the burn area, teams set about their assigned tasks.
The crew responsible for fire suppression hauled lengths of hose from their trucks, encircling the burn area in a giant loop and attaching smaller hose lines to wet nearby vegetation and douse any unexpected spot fires that could spark up from embers blowing out of the burn area.
Back at the trucks, members of the ignition team staged fuel cans and filled drip torches with diesel.
Drip torches are standard tools for prescribed burns. The metal canisters have a curved spout and one-way valve that allow firefighters to spread burning fuel across a burn area while keeping the main fuel supply contained.
Once the hose lines were established and all nearby foliage had been preemptively doused with water, the ignition team commenced its work.
Moving methodically across the burn area in strips roughly 10 metres wide, firefighters were careful to stay aware of any shifts in the wind in order to limit the fire’s rate of spread to a manageable speed.
The dry grass ignited quickly, leaving wide swaths of fire behind the firefighters as flames moved across the field with surprising speed.
The ignition operation lasted for roughly an hour, with team leaders and observers commenting on how smoothly the burn operation went.
With peak summer fire season fast approaching, Yukon Wildfire crews are hoping to conduct several more prescribed burns targeting areas around the communities of Haines Junction and Watson Lake before conditions become too hot and dry to allow for safe ignitions.
Contact Noah Korver at noah.korver@yukon-news.com
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