WATCH ABOVE: Dozens of Alberta wildland firefighters-in-training took what they learned in the classroom out into the real world Monday, battling staged fires as the province prepares for what’s expected to be a challenging season ahead. Sarah Ryan reports.As early as the start of last May, oil and gas companies in northwest and central Alberta as well as northeast B.C. found themselves temporarily halting production as wildfires raged across key fossil fuel-producing regions.
NuVista, a Calgary-based company, temporarily shut down all of its facilities in the Grande Prairie, Alta. area last May when fires made it impossible to access the company’s sites by road.Halifax tenant blindsided after lease isn’t renewed, landlord cites ‘business strategy’Enjoyed the solar eclipse? Here’s when and where it is happening next
“And so there is a NASA fire-tracking website which our field operations folks watch very closely whenever there’s fire risk … That allows you to predict well ahead of time if and when you need to shut in any facilities.”Many of the fires that burned last year in Western Canada remained smouldering as sub-surface hot spots throughout the winter, and are now igniting as the snow melts and temperatures heat up.
As of March 31, the federal government’s drought monitoring website classified the bulk of the Montney’s oil-and-gas producing areas as either under “extreme” or “severe” drought conditions.