OttawaA fire that broke out in Val-des-Bois, Que., over the long weekend is just the latest in what’s being described as an unusually active fall wildfire season across the province.Val-des-Bois, Que., blaze is the latest in an unusually active fall season, says SOPFEULiam Baker · CBC News · Posted: Oct 14, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoKai Richer stands on the shoreline near her family’s cottage in Val-des-Bois, Que., on Monday. She says she was reading near the water the day before when multiple water bombers flew overhead, responding to a wildfire in the municipality. (Liam Baker/CBC)Kai Richer was reading by the shoreline of her family cottage in Val-des-Bois, Que. on Sunday afternoon when she heard a plane rumbling overhead. The plane turned out to be a water bomber. It was followed by a few more, all making their way to suppress a forest fire that had broken out nearby.Shortly after, the Val-de-Bois fire chief was outside Richer’s cottage, confirming to local residents the presence of an active fire and reassuring them that local fire crews were responding. The news came as a shock to Richer.”I was like, wow, it actually is really close to us. But yet we couldn’t see anything. Like there was no smoke,” Richer told CBC on Monday. “We couldn’t really hear anything.”The only indication, aside from the presence of water bombers, was a large number of geese flying away from the site of the blaze.Quebec’s wildfire suppression and prevention agency, SOPFEU, sent multiple water bombers to help suppress the fire near Val-des-Bois, Que. over the weekend. (CBC)While local fire crews were the first to respond, Val-des-Bois Mayor Roland Montpetit told CBC over email that Quebec’s wildfire prevention and suppression agency, SOPFEU, joined in on the suppression efforts soon after.Aside from multiple water bombers, the agency also contributed a four-person firefighting crew to help out on the forest floor, according to Mélanie Morin, SOPFEU’s fire information officer.The fire had blazed through about 0.8 hectares by Monday afternoon but was under control, Morin said.Unusual wildfire activity across QuebecRicher, whose main residence is in Ottawa and heads to the cottage with her family on weekends, says it’s been noticeably hot and dry in the Val-des-Bois area.Similar weather has been playing out across the Outaouais region this fall, something SOPFEU attributes to an unusually active fall wildfire season in Quebec this year.Typically, Quebec would see about 40 wildfires in the fall, Morin said. But the province saw 103 wildfires in September alone, with an additional 84 so far in October.“There’s been a decline [in fire activity] in the past few days because of a bit of precipitation that we received last Tuesday. However, this is a pattern that we’ve seen many times since mid-July,” Morin said.“It does bring down the fire occurrence a little bit, and then we go back into a warm and dry period where we do start to get a lot more fire starts.”On Monday, there were only six wildfires actively burning in the province, with two in the Outaouais. The other, larger fire in the region, near the Pontiac Regional Municipality, has been burning since Oct. 5 and has grown to 21.8 hectares.SOPFEU’s wildfire database lists both fires in the Outaouais as under control. Morin confirmed that a third fire that recently started in the area, near Otter Lake, is no longer active.With warm and dry conditions expected to continue in the Outaouais, Morin says locals should prepare for more fires to break out in the days ahead.ABOUT THE AUTHORLiam Baker is an associate producer and reporter for CBC Ottawa. He also reports and produces stories on Inuit Nunangat for CBC Iqaluit. Previously, he’s reported for CBC Yukon, CBC Thunder Bay, CBC Toronto’s Enterprise unit. You can reach him at liam.baker@cbc.ca
Wildfires smolder in the Outaouais amid warm, dry fall
