Fire is a natural process in the boreal forest. Many fires in the Yukon are allowed to burn until they go out by themselves. But fires are not welcome in towns and cities, and those that come close to people or their property are fought aggressively. Yet some fires are so intense that no human efforts can control them. That is why towns are evacuated, as Echo Valley was in 1991, or even burn down, as Faro did in 1969. The Yukon Fire History Atlas contains maps, data, reports, and photographs of forest fires in the Yukon during the years 1946 to 2001. It was produced jointly by Yukon Fire Management (Government of the Yukon) in Whitehorse and the Canadian Forest Service (Natural Resources Canada) in Edmonton. The atlas is a compilation of the efforts of many people over more than 50 years. For example, there were district officers who sketched fire perimeters and filled out the requisite reports; secretaries and cartographers who recorded and organized the information; computer specialists who digitized the fire maps; pilots, surveyors, reporters, technicians, and fire fighters. They made this atlas possible, although in most cases we don't even know their names. Fire mapping methods have changed over the years since 1946. For many years, fires were observed from the air and sketched on topographic base maps. Later, some fires were mapped with global positioning systems (GPS). But with helicopter time now going for $1000 per hour, satellite imagery at $500 per scene is a bargain. Landsat imagery is used to locate and map not only current fires, but also historical fires whose boundaries can still be seen years later. It is also used to produce accurate maps of unburned islands within fires and historical fires in remote areas that were not detected when they occurred. Fire detection methods have also improved because of a larger, more dispersed population and the increase in (and cooperation of) private and commercial aviation. In the early years, fire surveillance consisted of townsfolk seeing smoke on the horizon, so most recorded fires were close to towns, and many fires were not detected at all. This limitation should be kept in mind when looking at the burned area statistics. Today, aircraft pilots and passengers, lookout towers, aerial patrols, lightning detection systems, and satellite-based monitoring help to detect most fires. At the core of this atlas are the fire perimeter (burned-area) maps. These are available both as GIF images, viewable on any web browser, and in formats suitable for use in geographic information systems (GIS). More than 1000 fire perimeter maps are included. However, the fire perimeter maps do not represent all the fires that have been detected. Many small fires were originally mapped simply as ignition locations. Although these are not included in the maps, they are recorded in the atlas tables, along with location coordinates, start date, cause, final size, and other information. The tables therefore contain information about all the fires known to have occurred from 1946 to 2001, a total of over 6000 fires. In addition to the maps and tables, the atlas includes photos, virtual fly-throughs, summary charts, and original fire reports. We are particularly pleased to present newspaper articles covering major forest fire events, reproduced with permission of the Whitehorse Daily Star and Yukon News. These articles were clipped and archived by staff at the Yukon Fire Centre over many years. We hope you will find the atlas both informative and enjoyable. We have made an effort to ensure that the atlas has something for everyone, from school classrooms to GIS research labs. We also hope that the atlas will raise awareness of forest fires and fire-related issues and preserve a valuable part of our history. |