During an otherwise very quiet 2022 forest fire season right across Ontario, the biggest fire doing the most damage was just south of Timmins.
MNR fire information officer Isabelle Chenard says it was early May, when flames engulfed the forest near Morin Village, west of Hwy. 144.
“It did impact Hwy. 560 between the Watershed and Elk Lake on a number of occasions,” she recalls, “and also some of the residents of Shining Tree to be displaced for a number of days.”
That fire destroyed 1,400 hectares of trees. All summer across the province, only a shade above 2,500 hectares burned. A hectare is roughly the size of a football field.
Overall, there’s no comparison to last year.
The cool, wet summer resulted in only 269 fires in the entire province. Chenard says in 2021, it was 1,998 burning through 784,000 hectares.
“Even though it’s been a fairly quiet fire season here in Ontario, our staff has kept busy doing other things and helping out other jurisdictions and municipalities that were experiencing escalated situations of a variety of things.”
That includes storm clean-up in Ontario. A crew is still in PEI, helping with the clean-up following Hurricane Fiona.