Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
There is more to learn about the consequences of intensifying wildfires on community watersheds across Canada, but a large, severe fire followed by heavy precipitation could seriously affect drinking water, says a wildfire research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service.
An intense fire can burn through vegetation and soil that serve to absorb and more evenly distribute precipitation or melting snow, and also naturally filter sediment and toxins before the water evenreaches a community's drinking-water source, Francois-Nicolas Robinne said in an interview from Edmonton.
"This kind of sponge effect that the forest has, that the vegetation has, goes away. So you have more water running off earlier in the season," he said.
In a worst-case scenario that could lead to flash floods and flowing debris and it's likely to affect how much drinking water is available to a community and when, said Robinne, with drought compounding the potential impact of wildfire.
"You already have less water, it's already stretched pretty thin, and you have suddenly this huge input of water, but of pretty bad water quality, usually, after a large and severe fire," said Robinne, adding any drinking water would be treated to Canadian standards but it's costly to purify water polluted by wildfire.
It could be "mayhem" to go though a cycle of drought, wildfires, heavy rains and drought again, said Robinne, "because the pressure on the water resource would become so high that I can't even imagine what it would mean in terms of water supply for communities."
Water supply downstream is generally expected to be affected when about 20 per cent of a watershed is burned. That threshold has been met in nine B.C. community watersheds so far this year, said Robinne, with two of those burning up entirely.
Canada needs more data and analysis of the historical and ongoing effects of wildfires on watersheds, said Robinne, noting his work at the forest service involves looking at drinking water intakes and fire risk around communities countrywide.
In the long term, the most intense scorching may resemble "some form of desertification," he said. "We're not there yet, but it's definitely a cause for concern."
In general, Robinne suggests that communities in fire-prone areas undertake fuel management, or reducing the vegetation susceptible to fire in their watershed.
Communities may also consider updating older drinking water treatment systems to ensure water quality in the event their source is affected by wildfire, he said.
British Columbia government mapping shows the eight-kilometre square Brenda Creek fire burning out of control west of Peachland overlaps with that community's watershed. It shows numerous other "wildfires of note," which are either highly visible or pose a threat to public safety, are burning in or very close to other watersheds.
All of Vancouver Island, the south coast and stretches of the southern Interior are classified as drought level four out of five, with many municipalities and regions implementing measures to conserve water through the rest of the summer.
Environment Canada has also issued heat warnings that stretch from parts of Vancouver Island to the south coast and across the southern Interior, as well as the inner central and north coast all the way up to B.C.'s boundary with Yukon.
The hot, dry conditions have helped fuel more than 1,250 wildfires sparked since the start of B.C.'s fire season on April 1, charring over 4,500 square kilometres of land. The 10-year average is 658 fires and about 1,060 square kilometres burned over the same time period, officials with the BC Wildfire Service said last week.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2021.
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
When Speaker Greg Fergus tossed out Pierre Poilievre from the House last week, "those of us who have experience as parliamentarians simply couldn't believe our eyes," writes former NDP leader Tom Mulcair in his column for CTVNews.ca
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.