Wildfire smoke turned the sky dark orange in La Ronge during an afternoon in May. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

wildfires

La Ronge, Prince Albert break records for smoke hours in 2023

Sep 8, 2023 | 3:35 PM

It was a record-breaking year when it came to the amount of smoke hours in La Ronge, Prince Albert, Regina and Saskatoon.

That’s according to data from Environment and Climate Change Canada, which notes the highest number of hours recorded was in La Ronge with 802 smoke hours between May 1 and Sept. 5, beating the record of 513 set in 2015.

Records have been kept since 1959 in La Ronge.

“We were trying to find a way to describe how smoky it has been because people kept on asking us,” explained meteorologist Terri Lang.

“It seems like it has been really smoky, so we had to find a way to define that and the best way for us to do that was to define these smoke hours. The visibility has to be reduced to 9.7 kilometres or less and the reasons for reduction in visibility had to be smoke. We had to have somebody observe that and report that and that’s what we used as smoke hours.”

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Lang stated the number of smoke hours in La Ronge is particularly significant considering in 2015 Air Ronge, La Ronge and Lac La Ronge Indian Band communities were evacuated for about two weeks due to a nearby wildfire that threatened the local airport.

“This year, most of the smoke has been coming mostly from the Northwest Territories, northern Alberta and British Columbia,” Lang added.

“Earlier on we were getting a lot of localized smoke from fires near Île-à-la-Crosse, Buffalo Narrows and La Loche and, later on in the summer, it has mostly been from afar. That really speaks to how much smoke there has been around this summer.”

For Prince Albert, there were 355 smoke hours in 2023, beating the old record of 231 hours also set in 2015. There were 282 hours this year in Saskatoon (old record of 165 set in 1981) and 223 hours in Regina (old record of 184 set in 2021). Lang mentioned records were also set in Calgary, Edmonton and Yellowknife.

“I think we will certainly be keeping track of the hours just because it’s a way to describe how smoky it’s been, and it varies up and down according to how many fires there are and we will see what next year produces,” she said.

“We know this year the number of fires that have been burning in western Canada aren’t necessarily higher than any other year, it’s the amount of hectares that have been burned that’s contributed to such widespread smoke.”

According to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, there have been 428 fires in the province so far in 2023 with the five-year average being 366. There are currently 21 active fires as of Sept. 8 with 19 being assessed and two burning uncontained.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com