The fires that burned across Ontario during 2018 easily broke the 10-year average for the number of fires and how much land was ablaze.
The year saw 1,325 fires burn 276,356 hectares.
Compare that to the 10-year average of 757 fires eating up 111,487 hectares.
Northeastern Ontario also had its fair share of fires where 486 forest fires consumed 62,661 hectares.
Nature accounted for most of the fires with lightning strikes responsible for 71 percent of the start-ups while the remainder were caused by people.
The northeast saw several notable fires.
One was the gigantic North Bay 72 which grew to 27,285 hectares and took five weeks to bring under control.
The fire was first discovered on July 8th and took firefighters until August 7th to designate it as “being held” and then eight more days to finally get the mammoth fire under control.
North Bay 72 wasn’t officially declared out until October 29th.
Another troublesome fire was Parry Sound 33.
This fire grew to 11,362 hectares and every day as it got bigger, it threatened to close down Highway 69 because smoke from the burning trees was reducing visibility on the Trans-Canada Highway.
Parry Sound 33 was spotted on July 18th and wasn’t brought under control until August 23rd before officially being declared out on October 31st.
The northeast also saw several fires spring up in the River Valley cluster which forced the closure of several access roads to peoples’ camps in the area.
Firefighters in Ontario got plenty of help from their colleagues virtually nation-wide except from Manitoba which had its own issues with lots of forest fires.
Also responding to the call for help were fire rangers from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Mexico.
In total Ontario got support from 799 outside forest fighters and 128 support staff.
Ontario also got outside equipment support including water bombers.