The fire danger rating in the Rocky Wildfire Management Area was moderate as of Friday morning.
Alberta Forestry’s wildfire status map shows one fire considered out of control north of Alexo. It was discovered at about 9 a.m. on Friday and at that time had burned less than three acres. It is the 97th fire in the management area this season.
A fire west of the Saunders area has burned 4.2 hectares and is under control. It was discovered on Wednesday.
The Rocky area has only seen about 130 acres burn this wildfire season. Of the 10 forest management areas in Alberta, it is the lowest loss.
The highest burned area in Alberta is in the High Level Wildfire Management Area, which has seen 277 fires (as of Friday) and about 600,000 acres burned.
Other northern forests — including Lac la Biche, Slave Lake, Fort McMurray and Peace River — have seen high numbers of fires and acres burned.
Provincially, as of Friday, there were 11 new fires in the past 24 hours and 30 wildfires out of control. There were a total of 95 active fires.
Since the wildfire season began, there have been 1,308 wildfires and about 1.1 million acres burned. This is over double the five-year average of 849 fires burning up about 500,000 acres.
The fire danger rating for all of Alberta is “mainly moderate to high in the boreal and southern slopes, and high to extreme in the northern slopes.”