As bad as it’s been in British Columbia, and it’s been bad – North Western Ontario/ Southern Manitoba has taken a beating as far as dry, hot weather is concerned too. It has been a very active season for Forest Fire Fighters! ( capitalized because they are that important!) With Red Lake 010 mentioned in a previous post at 6K hectares, there are now 5 more fires that are even larger than this one!
RL 016 at over 70,000 hectares runs across the park from Artery lake to Paishk Lake.
RL 067 at over 14,000 hectares is in the NE corner of the park above and east of Olive lake.
RL 077 at 19,000 hectares occupies an area above Optic and Telescope Lakes.
RL 073 at 4,500 hectares and growing is above Donald lake primarily.
Ken 051 at 78,000 hectares is in the south end of the park and below. From the Manitoba border up and over to Talon lake and extending south to Grey Fox and Tait Lakes.
There is a Fire Ban throughout much of NW Ontario including the park.
The park is CLOSED to visitors – officially to July 16 but likely far beyond this date.
This is not the sort of thing I want to be ‘reporting’, especially since 2020 was a relatively quiet year for this sort of thing. i.e. no burns reported on my map. This year’s map will be littered in burn! – yuck! Anyways, it is a time of regeneration for the black spruce etc. It seems that what hasn’t been burned in the last 20-30 years is now burning quite well this year. ugh. The park and the boreal forest will look much different for some time now. Still some amazing sites to take in and what a wonderful time to actually see the growth come from this devastation!
Please consider taking a journey up here in the year’s to come – to witness this sight. I promise it truly is a gorgeous neck of this Ontario wilderness!
On that note, I am away from Friday July 16 – Friday July 23. Any orders placed during this time will be processed when I get back. Please if you are considering ordering a map – order it before noon this Friday.
Any comments, future topics, questions.. please let me know. Cheers.