Province on Fire
Northumberland County, home to New Brunswick's forestry sector, is fighting back the flames
Scorched earth.
That’s the phrase that pops into my head as I walk across my dry, brown lawn listening to the previously green grass crackle-crackle under my feet on yet another sunny, cloudless day.
The Perseid meteor shower was at its peak this week, which reminds me of summer nights past when my little family would drag our pillows and sleeping bags onto the back deck to cuddle up way past my daughter’s bedtime and watch for shooting stars.
Often, we didn’t see any because of cloud cover or misty rain, both typical down here in southwestern New Brunswick, along the Bay of Fundy coast.
That every night this summer, let alone this week, has been a perfect night for stargazing is both lovely and concerning because it is unusual.
This is the part of the country that proudly boasts that ‘if you don’t like the weather, just wait 15 minutes,’ a promise that has gone unfulfilled for 10 weeks.
We’ve had no substantive rain since June; that’s not a blip, that’s a change.
Uncontrolled forest fires are now burning in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The Canada Games, hosted this week in St. John’s, has had to change some venues because of the encroaching fires.
I’m watching videos of smoke billowing behind the box stores where I shop when I’m in Halifax.
And here in New Brunswick, cottagers and residents watch waterbombers dip into the Northumberland Strait to refill and return to fight fires that encroach on the rural areas north of Moncton and Miramichi.
Side Walks is fully funded by readers and organizations that support our mission to produce local journalism. If you’re enjoying this story, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, $8/month or $80/year. You can also sign up for a free subscription. All subscriptions deliver Side Walks directly to your email inbox, and you can also read along on the Substack app.
Think of us as your friendly neighbourhood buskers setting fire to complacency while juggling a mix of coverage, commentary and culture – and this is the point in the show where we pass the hat. We appreciate your support!
Now back to the story…
There isn’t a community in New Brunswick that isn’t surrounded by forests.
While water defines our borders – saltwater to the north, east and south, freshwater to the west – look inward and it is a sea of trees.
Trees blanket close to 84 per cent of the province’s 72,908 square kilometres.
About half of those trees sit on Crown land, Canada’s public ownership structure that so rankles Americans in the ongoing softwood lumber trade dispute.
Another 30 per cent are private woodlots, and 18 per cent of New Brunswick forests are owned by industrial players, the largest being J.D. Irving, Limited. The federal government owns the remaining 1 per cent. I don’t know for certain, but I’m going to guess that includes Fundy and Kouchibouguac National Parks.
This morning's sunny skies had me checking the provincial government’s Fire Watch dashboard, which was reporting 30 active forest fires, with 19 of them in Northumberland County, the largest of New Brunswick’s 15 counties.
At 12,843 square kilometres, it is the province’s largest county, cutting through from the Northumberland Strait into the centre of New Brunswick, where fishing and hunting lodges exist alongside logging roads and shuttered mines.
There’s the Chief’s fire, so named because it is located near Chief’s Plateau. It doubled in 24 hours and now covers 50 hectares in a remote area located south of the Nepisguit River as it runs east to west across the top of the county. The fire is west of Hwy. 430, a bit northwest of the old Heath Steele mine, which once mined copper, lead and zinc until it closed in 1999.
Yesterday (Friday), a second small fire, just one-tenth of a hectare, was spotted north of the Chief’s fire and is being monitored.
At the other end of the county, along the border with Gloucester County and the start of the Acadian Peninsula, a number of fires are burning.
There’s a trio of fires running north-south north of Lavillette, the small community that was under an evacuation advisory on Friday because of a fourth, 8.5-hectare fire south of it.
Other fires in deep in New Brunswick’s woods include the Serpentine fire, a two-hectare patrolled fire southeast of Mt. Carleton Provincial Park; Lumsden Road fire, a contained fire of note located just north of Big Hole Tract, the 5.5-hectare Maple Glen fire east of Big Hole Tract and a pair of side-by-side fires off Hwy 118 south of Miramichi off Barnaby Road South.
As my daughter, now away at university studying science, told me recently, “climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.”
What we expect in the Maritimes is a variable climate with temperatures that fluctuate courtesy of ocean currents that bring us sun, rain, fog, cool mornings, and multi-hued ‘red sky at night, sailors’ delight’ sunsets during our shortish summer.
We store rain jackets and hoodies in our vehicle trunks and backseats in anticipation of a change in the weather. This summer mine sits balled up on the floor of the backseat beneath reusable grocery bags, the dog’s portable water dish, and sunscreen.
Ever-changing weather is the constant for our climate.
That it isn’t this summer should give us all pause.
If you enjoyed this column, please share the love with others who you think would enjoy the conversation we’re having on Side Walks. We’re building a community interested in finding common ground around complex issues by focusing on local repercussions and opportunities caused by national and global issues. We’re based in New Brunswick, on Canada’s East Coast. Cheers
Stroll Over to Side Walks For More Stories
News & Analysis
The East Coast’s Decades-long Pipe Dream: Could a pipeline into Northern New Brunswick help solve the region's slow-moving energy crisis?
Street Smarts: Small talk and the flavours of the neighbourhood.
How to Build Fair While Moving Fast: A decade-old New Brunswick model offers a way to align development with Indigenous, environmental, and economic priorities.
Community Wealth and Health Should Be the Focus for Regulatory Approval of New Development Projects: That's the answer when local residents ask why they should take on environmental risk and community disruptions caused by increased traffic and other annoyances when industry comes to town.
Culture
The Best of New Brunswick Books: Your summer reading list awaits with fiction, non-fiction, poetry and young readers honourees from the 10th annual New Brunswick Book Awards.
New TV series Revival comes alive in New Brunswick's deep, dark woods: The rural noir supernatural mystery pays homage to its graphic novel roots with a mix of humour, heart and horror that plays out on the back roads of Kings County.
Side Walks Home Page
Catch up on all our stories at www.sidewalksmedia.ca.