Saskatchewan Public Needs Better Wildfire Reporting
When the 2016 Wildland fire season was upon us early last year, it came with a vengeance. Just to walk in the woods or even along roadsides in the province and the crunch of dry vegetation under your feet was unnerving.
Even more unnerving was the knowledge that the people of Saskatchewan would be in the dark throughout the wildland fire season.
Fortunately, 2016 turned out to be a slow year for fires, compared to 2015. Viewing the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre Inc. - National Wildland Fire Situation Report for Aug 31, 2016, they show 358 fires had burned 261,518 hectares in 2016. looking back on 2015, there where 720 Wildfires that burned 1,719,090 hectares.
2017, has started out as a slow year for wildland fires, as of May 31, 2017, Saskatchewan has seen only 84 fires, compared to a five year average of 163 by this date.
Wildland Fire Reporting in Saskatchewan
With nothing but cryptic data and vague fire maps offered to us by the Province of Saskatchewan Wildfire Management branches, it almost seems to be a “need to know” basis.
The media is also cryptic and, why they offer so little and such generalized information, is unclear. Maybe they are just too lazy to dig for details, or maybe they are, like the residents of Saskatchewan, not among the ones that “need to know”.
The residents of Saskatchewan are given so little information that every year we turn to social media for anything we can find. Needless to say that is about the most unreliable source of updates to have to rely on.
First hand reports from friends, neighbours and total strangers can be accurate and helpful, however they can also be misleading. A good example of that is how claims of damage done by a wildfire, such as homes lost, size of the fire, can be quickly exaggerated and even made up.
Once a post with misinformation is made, no one reads and verifies it, they just share it and the post takes on a life of it’s own, much like the wildfires themselves.
A better system of updates is not impossible, in fact it’s so doable that BC, Alberta and Manitoba have extensive fire updates with specific details of fires, right down to GPS co-ordinates for each fire.
Take a look at samples of what the other three western provinces offer their residents.
BC Wildfire Service
BC Wildfire Service has an entire website devoted to provide extensive, details information on anything and everything to do with wildfires in their province.
There is so much information on their website it would take your hours just to read all that they provide. Everything you could possibly want or need to know about fires in British Columbia is there, right down to how many pieces of equipment are on each fire and extensive details about fire bans and restrictions for each area. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter & subscribe to the Province’s YouTube channel. They even have a message board that you can use to leave a message for the firefighters battling to keep you safe! If you mention a firefighter by name, that person can search and see all the messages to them from their friends and family. How cool is that?
Alberta Wildfire
Alberta Wildfire also has a dedicated website with an amazing amount of information.
AB Wildfire also provides updates to the public on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Hell, they even have a mobile app!
Again, everything you could possibly need to know about wildfires, fire bans or anything else related to the fires is there.
Manitoba Wildfire
While Manitoba Wildfire’s website isn’t as state of the art as BC and Alberta’s is, they still manage to provide cold hard facts about the fire situations in their province.
Clearly they didn’t spend as much as the other two, but they still have a very valuable, information packed site with plenty of updates their residents deserve. They offer links to the Government of Manitoba’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts that you can follow to get up to the minute updates during wildland fire season
They offer fire bulletins, packed with information, these bulletins get shared on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, so you can get these updates as soon as they are posted.
Perhaps the most useful feature is Manitoba’s interactive map for Current Municipal Burning Restrictions. You can look up any RM or community in Manitoba and see if there are burning restrictions and where the boundaries are.
In Saskatchewan, we rely, for the most part, on the media and social media to broadcast these important notices.
Wildfire in Saskatchewan
Then we have Saskatchewan.
Spring of 2017, the entire government of Saskatchewan’s web site underwent an overhaul. Sadly, the new site was hardly an improvement over the old one, some may find it to be less useful with it’s new look. Granted it no longer looks like it was designed in the 90’s (it’s very 2005 now)but some serious flaws now make it more difficult to find what you are looking for.
“Wildfire in Saskatchewan” is the new name for the section of their website that provides what little information they choose to give as updates to the public.
The migration to the new site has been sketchy to date. Old pages have been left static, with no redirects save for a manual link to follow. Even the meta tag for robots, which tells search engines if they should index a page, still warmly welcomes search engines to keep the old page on the top of their search results.
There was no search engine flow to the transition and old pages are still being indexed as the top current site. There are more behind the scenes flaws to the new website, but I won’t get into that, as they aren’t as relevant to the public. Except this one thing… Google has a free feature that any business or organization can utilize. When someone searches “Saskatchewan wild fire”, the search results includes a popup box to the right, which is in essence a free listing. All you have to do is claim yours. This gives Google search users, not only a stand out web link, but allows you to add pertinent information such as contact numbers, address. This same service connects to google maps for easy directions to an office.
All of this really makes me wonder just how much the Government pays for web site development and maintenance, because I know some 12 year olds that can produce a better website.
Fire Bans? Go look somewhere else…
No one stop reference to fire bans around the province. Nope, instead they give you these words of wisdom; “Only Government of Saskatchewan fire bans are listed on this page. Please note that municipal authorities and national or regional parks may also ban open burning to address local hazards. Check if this applies to where you are.”
Gosh, thanks, I never would have thought of that.
Daily Fire Updates? The less you know the better, maybe?
Updates on the actual fires are not provided in the Current Wildfire Activity. This is one aspect that is a downgrade from the old site. In 2016, you got a DOS style report about active fires, while it did not give you locations of active fires, it at least listed which FPA (Fire Protection Area) the fires were in.
The new version gives far less information. But hey, it looks prettier.
Generalized maps showing vague locations of past and present fires with the only status being an icon defined in a legend as Not Contained, Ongoing Assessment, Protecting Values, Contained or Out, have not changed.
What is helpful…sort of?
You can find specific locations of each fire though, by going to their interactive map. Using the map you can see active fires and retrieve details such as status, start date, size in hectares, cause and GPS location. Unfortunately the tool is cumbersome, slow loading and difficult to navigate until you’ve learned how the layers work. Also as unfortunate, the data available in the interactive map often conflicts the stats provided on the Status of Active Wildfires page, with no way of know which is the one most up to date.
Why do residents need access to more information?
I can’t help but wonder how much time the fire bases and other agencies waste fielding inquiries from people just trying to find out whats going on in their area and in other areas where they have family and friends.
I also wonder how many people would stay out of the way, instead of feeling like if they want to know what’s happening, they need to go right to the front lines.
At very least, a reference page like the Province of Manitoba’s Current Municipal Burning Restrictions would be a valuable asset, particularly considering the majority of rural municipalities in Saskatchewan still haven’t learned how to use Facebook or Twitter and many don’t even have a web site.
The Province of Saskatchewan needs to engage the residents. What’s vital about how the other western provinces offer extensive, easy to find wildland fire info, is that it brings people to their website. Once there, they all offer engaging public awareness and wildland fire education opportunities.
So if I have missed anything, if there is some secret website for SK wildfires that I haven’t found, or if they do have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube account, please feel free to let me know in the comments!
Until such time as we have a better system, you can join the Facebook group for Saskatchewan Wildfire News, who’s purpose is to join together as a community and keep each other up to date. There, we can share SK wildfire news with each other. News articles, official reports, personal reports from people on the front lines are welcome.
Facebook — Saskatchewan Wildfire News
