The rain of the past couple of days can take the credit for the lower forest fire hazard in Northeastern Ontario headed into the weekend.
MNRF forest fire information officer Shane McCool says it is now low to moderate across most of the region.
“We do have more scattered precipitation in the forecast,” he notes, “so that’ll bring some cloud cover and a little bit of relief in that form as well. So it looks like a low to moderatre for today and we could see that hazard climb slightly over the weekend, but not nearly the hazard we were seeing earlier this week.”
That fire near Gogama that we’ve been following is now considered “under control” instead of simply “being held”. Three other small fires have been reported across the northeast in the past 24 hours.
McCool says one is just northeast of Matachewan, there’s one near Sudbury, and one on a small island near Temagami that’s going to be allowed to burn itself out.
McCool adds that the lower hazard is no reason to be careless, especially with campfires.
“Never leave your campfires unattended and ensure that there’s always an adult in the area to ensure that the fire can be tended to.”