The lightning season came early this year, the air has been dry and hot, but Wildland Fire Management firefighters are still anticipating a typical Yukon summer.

"We're not expecting it to be a super hot summer, like we experienced in 2004," Mike Sparks, the operations supervisor and territorial duty officer for Wildland Fire Management, said at a media information meeting Tuesday.

"Nor are we expecting it to be similar to last year, where, I think everyone can remember it was fairly cool and wet."

Sparks said it's challenging to predict the summer outlook.

"It's very difficult right now with the different weather patterns affecting the Yukon ... to really get a sense of what we're heading for," he said.

But the Wildland Fire Management meteorologist, Don Green, monitors weather patterns and trends daily.

"We base all of our decisions pretty much on what our meteorologist can put together with the forecast," he said.

The original seasonal outlook predicted a cooler and wetter than normal summer, but the May 1 forecast called for above-normal temperatures and dryer than normal conditions.

Because some of the larger lakes remain covered with ice, the relative humidity has dropped to single-digit numbers, which is "an extremely dry air mass for this time of year and that's really helped dry things out," said Sparks.

Aside from a few localized showers, the dry spring has contributed to lower humidity.

Even with a record snowfall in many areas of the Yukon, the air has dried up quickly.

"The amount of snow we get in the winter time really doesn't affect the long-term fire situation here," said Sparks.

As the snow melts, it either goes back into the air, or if the ground is frozen the snow melt runs off into the rivers and has a minimal effect on the vegetation.

"So conditions are fairly ripe here," said Sparks.

But a dry spring is typical for the Yukon, he said, and the two major weather patterns that affect the fire season - El Nino and La Nina - are in a neutral state right now.

The Yukon averages 150 fires each summer, so the firefighters will still be busy, said Sparks.

"You need to be very aggressive on initial attack with those fires to contain them small so we can prevent any significant damage," said Sparks.

There are 22 initial attack groups dispersed amongst Yukon communities, ready to respond to fire. Of these, 11 are first nations contract crews and 11 are government crews.

If necessary, the wildland fire team can borrow resources from neighbouring territories and provinces, as well.

The wildland firefighters have two sets of air tankers, which fly over a fire dropping retardant.

All the aircraft used by the wildland fire team are fitted with a satellite tracking device called Dispatch, which allows them to monitor each plane as it flies throughout the territory.

Using this system, they can dispatch their air tankers to wherever there is a need.

Already they have sent their planes to Alaska to help contain a lightning-caused fire in Chicken early this week, which went from a small fire to 20-30 hectares within 20 minutes, and spread to 300 hectares within hours.

"But it's just an indication of how conditions are over in Chicken, very aggressive fire behaviour," said Sparks.

The air tankers in Anchorage were unable to attend to the Chicken fire because of multiple fires igniting all across the state. Last Saturday alone, the state's firefighters were faced with 17 small wildfires.

"Alaska, the last time I talked to them around 11:30 (Monday) night, they'd had so many fires they couldn't tell me how many they'd got," said Sparks.

The Yukon firefighters look at Alaska's weather patterns. If they notice similar conditions in the territory, they can anticipate similar fire loads.

One Alaska weather pattern they have been monitoring is lightning, which was the cause of all 17 starts last Saturday.

The Yukon's lightning season usually begins around June 15, "but we're starting to see it a little bit earlier this year, which is definitely concerning for us," said Sparks.

The territory saw its first lightning-caused fire of the year Monday, in the Carmacks district near Black Creek.

Lightning is only half the battle, said Sparks. Approximately 50 per cent of fires in the Yukon are human-caused.

"The last two fires that were human -caused were just carelessness. Both of them are under investigation," said Sparks.

He said a small fire set Monday afternoon may have been the result of children playing with matches, since children were spotted running from the scene.

An improperly extinguished campfire is suspected to be the cause of a fire in the Robson subdivision last weekend, said Sparks.

Campfires, too, are a leading cause of fires, he said.

"There are people that go out camping just in the wilderness and they'll build their fires wherever they want," said Sparks.

A campfire left unattended definitely has the potential to escape, he said.

"The message that we're trying to get out there is for people to do their part and extinguish fires properly," said Sparks.

If people do build fires in the wilderness, they should be sure to build them on mineral soil and to place a ring of rocks around the fire.

"Within the city of Whitehorse here, we've got something like 7,000 hectares of greenbelt within the city limits. So we're definitely concerned with any fires that will occur around the community," said Sparks.

Although firefighters can usually contain a blaze before too much damage is done, there have been cases in the Yukon where structures have been destroyed as a result of "careless fires," said Sparks.

Because the territory has boreal forests that rely on fire as part of the rejuvenation process, and because of the level of resources in they have, the wildland fire team will not fight every fire this summer - only in cases where infrastructure, private property or human lives are at risk.

"It would be very costly for the Yukon government to go after every fire that occurs in the Yukon," said Sparks. "Fire plays an significant role in the boreal forest in regenerating. So a lot of fires we'll just let burn, they're natural."

In addition to their firefighting duties, the wildland fire team is involved with other aspects of emergency response.

Currently, there are three initial attack crews in Watson Lake working on flood preparation for the Liard River. Because of the heavy snow load, there's potential for the Liard River to flood.

"At this point, we're not sure whether it's going to flood, but we're trying to get the work done ahead of time," said Sparks.

The fire crews are sandbagging and running operations.