Forest Fire Season Ends

2009 will go into the books as one of the quietest forest fire seasons on record in northwestern Ontario.

The fire season wrapped up on Saturday with just 194 forest fires reported.

Fire Information officer Debbie McLean says despite two very slow back-to-back fire years, the Ministry of Natural Resources won't be making any changes to its fire fighting plans for next year.

"As an emergency response organization we do have to be prepared," says McLean, "regardless if whether we're expecting a slow or busy fire season. The fact is that we did have 194 fires. Of those over 100 were caused by human activity. There's always that risk every fire season even in a slow fire season that every fire carries the potential of being life threatening."

McLean adds while there were fewer forest fires this year over last, total area burned was up considerably.