As of Tuesday morning, there were 33 active wildfires in New Brunswick, including four listed as being “out of control.”
Those four active fires are the Chief’s fire near Northesk, Beaver Lake Stream near Red Bank, Lovalls Lake near the Brunswick Mines and Rocky Brook near Balmoral Parish, which are all located in the northern portion of the province.
Three of those fires are more than 180 hectares in size, including the Beaver Lake Stream blaze, which was discovered last Thursday; the Chief’s fire, which was discovered a day earlier; and the Rocky Brook, which was discovered on Friday night.
“The Beaver Lake Stream fire, we’ve got visibility to that was the result of a lightning strike. That one was particularly clear,” New Brunswick Natural Resources Minister John Herron said.
The minister said the fire is in a very remote portion of the province, which will make it tough to get under control.
“It’s north of the Renuse Highway and south of Mount Carlton. It is very, very, very removed from people. So also road infrastructure,” he said.
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“So it’s going to be very challenging for us to be able to get the assets that we’ll need to wrestle that fire down.”
The remainder of the fires are listed as contained, under control, being monitored or being patrolled on Fire Watch.
The wildfires have ground the province’s forestry sector to a halt. Some mills are on the verge of running out of wood after the government banned forest harvesting amid extreme wildfire risk, officials said Monday.
A bit of rain fell in the past few days, but it wasn’t enough to relieve the tinder-like conditions of the forest floor, Herron said.
“By no means are we in a position for us to be able to reopen the forest carte blanche at this point in time, but we may have opportunities for us to do things on a regional or an area-specific basis,” Herron told reporters in Fredericton.
The fires have claimed millions of dollars worth of trees in a province where the economy is heavily dependent on forestry.
“Given that we’ve lost or are at risk of losing about 2,500 hectares, translated that would represent about $4 million in royalty revenue on a go-forward basis or stumpage to the land owner,” Herron said. “The timber itself would represent about $10.5 million in direct and indirect tax revenue to the government from the forest sector value chain.
“That timber would represent approximately $42.5 million in lumber revenue to sawmills and overall, from a New Brunswick GDP perspective, it would be about $77.5 million.”
— with files from The Canadian Press
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