Two small wildfires were started in the Bow Valley over the past week as the result of lightning activity and unusual weather for the area, according to Environment Canada.
The strikes occurred last Wednesday (July 30) and Saturday (Aug. 3) as storm clouds rolled through the valley, along with significant lighting and thunder. Parks Canada wildfire crews put both out quickly.
Environment Canada meteorologist Gary Dickinson looked at the weather in the Bow Valley on Saturday and said the general weather pattern was “a little bit different” than normal.
“The cause of the lightning storm was an area of low pressure moving across the Banff area,” Dickinson said. “Banff just happened to be in the right spot for thunderstorm formation and that was essentially the cause for most of the lightning strikes.”
He said the weather that day was coming generally from the northwest and west, and at times from the northeast. Typically, the Bow Valley’s weather comes from the west and southwest.
On average, the Bow Valley has a very low number of lightning storms when compared to areas in the east.
“Generally, what happens with thunderstorm formation is the Rockies or the Foothills cause some forced uplift, which causes air parcels to move up into the air and cause thunderstorms and they tend to drift eastward,” Dickinson said. “They are formed over the Foothills and the Rockies and they drift farther east. Places like central Alberta and Calgary will see higher densities of lightning strikes compared to places like Banff and Canmore.”
Jed Cochrane, Parks Canada fire and vegetation specialist for Lake Louise Yoho and Kootenay, said the lightning strike on Saturday started a fire by Castle Mountain along with two at the south end of Kootenay – one on Redstreak and one near Kindersley.
“All three fires were actioned by our initial attack crews,” he said. “They were spot fires in size, so they didn’t get very large.”
The fires were spotted on Sunday (Aug. 3) and put out in two days. Cochrane said the rain that came along with the storms helped keep things from being too active and provided relief in terms of fire danger for a bit.
He said he expected the fire danger rating to go back up on Wednesday (Aug. 6), although there are no plans to institute a campfire ban in the mountain national parks. British Columbia has a campfire ban in place for southern parts of the province all the way up to the Alberta border.
The first lightning strike fire to hit the Bow Valley last Wednesday was near the hamlet of Harvie Heights.
Provincial wildfire information officer Matthew Anderson said lightning hit a tree on a ridge that evening some time after 7 p.m.
“One tree took the hit and a couple more burned a bit, but it was still quite small,” he said. “Parks Canada had a helicopter and were able to throw a couple of bucket loads of water on it.”
At first it was unclear if the fire was inside the national park, but Anderson said the next day provincial officials were able to hike in and ensure it was extinguished, including using a few more buckets of water by helicopter.
So far this year, the Calgary wildfire management area has had 13 lightning strike fires. In 2013 there were three, in 2012 there were seven and in 2011 there were five.
Anderson said the summer in the management area has been drier than usual, likely resulting in more fires being started.
“I think it is a combination of how dry it has been in the area and then all of a sudden we get these big lighting storms,” he said, adding an area like Slave Lake has seen 104 lightning strike fires this year making this area low on the scale.
