Wildfire risk 'really high' in the coming days but province says it's ready

Hot, dry weather is in the forecast for Alberta next week, which could see the risk for wildfires increase.

"Fire risk is going to be really high in the next couple of days and especially as we come out of the weekend and into early next week," CTV News Edmonton meteorologist Josh Classen said Thursday. "We've already had some new fires from lightning strikes in the last couple of days across parts of the north and could see some more lightning and not a lot of moisture Friday night especially in northeastern Alberta."

As of Thursday afternoon there are 63 fires burning across the province with 11 out of control.

Ten of those are in the High Level area and one is near Fort McMurray.

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"It's the far north that we're having most of the trouble with right now as far as the dry weather and hot weather that we've had up there," Todd Loewen, minister of forestry and parks, told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday.

"We do have crews working all across northern Alberta on these fires, and we have air support and heavy equipment. And so there's a lot of work being done."

Despite the current conditions and upcoming forecast, Loewen says crews are ready for anything.

"We have all the training done. We have contracted equipment, we've had the additional air tankers, we've got the additional night vision helicopters that we wanted. And so everything's in place as far as the number of crews and preparedness," he said.

"We're just just watching things and making sure that we're prepared and across the province for anything that could develop."

The province also has more firefighters on staff than in 2023.

"We got an additional 100 firefighters, plus an additional 40 contract firefighters. In addition to that we've hired within the government I think up to maybe 50 or 60 forest officers plus additional staff that helped with a wildfire as far as logistics and equipment and things like that."

Planes are also ready to travel anywhere in the province at a moment's notice.

"We have our Q400 planes that drop retardant and we've had them positioned in the Slave Lake area because from Slave Lake, they can access any virtually virtually anywhere in Alberta in about an hour. And so they're always loaded and ready to go."

The wildfire near Fort McMurray has forced Suncor Energy to remove all but non-essential workers from its Firebag oilsands site.

A Suncor spokeswoman said the move was a precautionary measure, but added the situation was being monitored and further action would be taken if necessary.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson and The Canadian Press