Wildfires in peat an added challenge for Alberta firefighters

As wildfires scorch the earth across Alberta, firefighters are drawing attention to an additional challenge they're facing on the frontlines: battling fire in organic matter called peat.

Peat, which researchers say has been drying out due to the changing climate, is contributing to how deep wildfires are getting and how long they could potentially smoulder. There are concerns over the manpower that will be needed to completely extinguish the fires.

Sophie Wilkinson, an assistant professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, said roughly 20 per cent of Alberta's land is covered by peatland ecosystems.

"When peatlands are wet, they actually slow the spread of fire, or in some cases, stop the spread of fire. That helps fires maintain a small size, which means they're able to be managed and suppressed," Wilkinson said.

But she said there are trends of peatlands becoming drier due to drought and thinner snowpacks.

And when peatlands are dry, they burn more quickly, and fire can more easily spread across larger areas, she said.

Fires burning longer

Parkland County Fire Chief Brian Cornforth said peat, also known as muskeg or bog, is a combustible material that doesn't need a lot of oxygen to burn underground.

"It literally has enough air that it will smoulder underground and travel many metres underground," he said.

"It's intensely hot. So when crews are working in there, the peat is very deep — up to a metre and deeper in some places. That fire is travelling underground and we need to physically dig those locations up."

Cornforth said it is labour intensive to deal with peat fires and an immense amount of water is needed to extinguish them.

"If we don't, that fire will just continue to burn for the next few months. The longer we leave it, the deeper it gets," he said.

Cornforth is calling for more resources from the provincial government, which is already strapped for resources as it deals with an unprecedented number of wildfires so early in the season.

Parkland County Mayor Allan Gamble said the county has brought in firefighters from Paul Band and Enoch Cree Nation while also privately contracting firefighters from B.C.

"We're looking for more trained firefighters to be boots on the ground to extinguish the fire," Gamble said.

"It's difficult to coordinate with so many fires going on in so many municipalities and there's a competition for resources, there's no question about it."

Research being done on 2021 wildfire

Greg Verkaik, a PhD student studying peatland wildfire ecohydrology at McMaster University, has been researching the scorched earth in Tomahawk, roughly 100 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.

Wildfire burned through part of the hamlet in 2021, and it took about 400 days for it to be fully extinguished, Verkaik said, because the area is covered in peat.

"When the fire gets into the peat and starts to smoulder away, it's really difficult to extinguish. When we see these big flashy crown fires, they're obviously very stark and worrisome for people," he said, referring to fires that burn trees up their entire length.

"But once those fires burn through, we have these smouldering peat fires that just remain for a very long period of time," Verkaik said.

"They also can start new fires later on. If you get drier conditions, you can get flare-ups happening and more crown fires."

Verkaik said peat fires can also burn through the winter.

"It can melt the snow away on top and start to smoke through the snow where you wouldn't expect to find fire ... and then the following spring it can pop up again and cause more surface and ground fires to happen."

More concerns

Though the majority of fires burning right now are in Western Canada, Wilkinson said there are worries for other parts of the country; Canada has roughly one-quarter of the world's peatlands.

"We're also seeing areas in Eastern Canada, which didn't used to have much wildfire at all, getting more instances and more area burned from wildfire. So it really is a nationwide problem," she said.

Verkaik said there are also more severe peat fires occurring.

"We're seeing more frequent fires happening on the landscape in general, and so that's going to burn more peatlands," he said.

"But we're also seeing more severe fires happening in these peatlands as well, with drier conditions due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. That's a big concern for us going into the future."