This year’s forest fire season is already the second worst registered in Canada, and experts warn that this could be the new normality.
More than 7.3 million hectares have burned this year so far, more than double the 10 -year average for this time of year, according to the latest figures of the Canadian Forest Fire Fire Center (CIFC) Canadians and the natural resources of Canada.
“It is the size of New Brunswick, putting it in context,” News Mike Flannigan, a forest fire professor at Thompson Rivers University, told CBC.
The last three fire seasons are among the 10 worst registered, according to a federal database dating from 1972, with the devastating fires of 2023 occupying the first place.
“I have never seen three bad fire seasons in a row,” said Flannigan, who has been studying fires since the 70s.
“I have seen two followed: ’94, ’95. I have never seen three. This is scary.”
Manitoba and Saskatchewan represent more than half of the burned area so far, but the British columbia, Alberta and Ontario are also well above their averages of 25 years. Fire prohibitions have been announced in multiple provinces, including a total prohibition of going to the forest in Nueva Scotia.
Meanwhile, the military and the coastal guard were called to help fight fires in Newfoundland and Labrador this week. According to Cuffc, around 1,400 international firefighters have also helped fight Canadian fires so far this year.
Scientists say that climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels, has created longer fire seasons and drier landscapes, generating more intense and generalized forest fires.
“I always used to say … some years are colder and more humid and we will have quiet years,” Flannigan said.
“But maybe every year it will be a bad year of fire now.”
Dry conditions throughout the country have allowed Globe Fires quickly this fire season.
“Canada’s forests are too dry, too hot,” said Environment Canada, David Phillips, CBC News. “This year … there is no postponement of what we have seen.”
This year has seen notable fires in the regions where we have historically done, such as Newfoundland and Labrador, where a fire has grown to more than 5,200 hectares.
Yan Boulanger, a research scientist of Forest Ecology at Natural Resources Canada, says that Newfoundland “is not used to [seeing] great fires “.
“But we will have to get used more and more, because it is also projected that these ecosystems see an increase in fire activity in the coming decades.”
The other atypical is Quebec, which was one of the most affected provinces in 2023, when it is estimated that 4.5 million hectares were burned.
This year, the province has had a much softer fire season, thanks to the frequent precipitation in spring and early summer, says Boulanger. But a sudden episode of dry conditions in August, usually a month of quiet fire for the province, has experts that recommend surveillance.
Consequences of repeated fires
Bad seasons of consecutive fire can have great consequences.
Fire is a natural part of the life cycle for many tree species, but a forest can be damaged to the point where trees cannot grow again in the area for years, or even decades. It is called “regeneration failure.”
“The problem is when we have too much fire and we are coming out of what we are calling the natural variability of the system,” Boulanger said. “When such things happen … the forest can lose its resistance.”
Scientists are already seeing it in Quebec regions that were very damaged in 2023, and in parts of the Northwest and Alberta territories, says Boulanger. At this time, around 300,000 to 400,000 hectares are affected by the regeneration failure in Quebec.
Less trees means that less carbon is stored, exacerbating the problem of increasing emissions that occur during generalized forest fires. The 2023 fires produced almost a quarter of the world’s forest fire carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the smoke of forest fires has been linked to a myriad of health complications, including a higher risk of dementia.
Heat warnings remain in place during much of Canada as warm and humid temperatures continue to feed forest fires. Ken McMullen, Chief of Firefighters of Red Deer, Alta., Is asking for the development of a National Forest Fire Administration to assign resources and coordinate rescue efforts between the provinces.
With intense forest fires that become an annual problem in Canada to a new scale, we need more strategies, experts say.
The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) has asked Ottawa to Establish a national forest fire coordination agency To ensure that staff and equipment can be distributed throughout the country when different regions are watching heavy fires, and that fire chiefs are on the table when national policies are made.
The government has been studying the possibility of creating a national disaster response agency since 2023, and met CAFC to discuss it in December. But it is time to go beyond the planning stage, according to Ken McMullen, president and fire chief of the organization in Network Deer, Alta.
“All parties say they think it is a good idea. The reality is that no one has helped collect the ball and through the finish line,” he said.
Flannigan, at the University of Thompson Rivers, supports the idea, but believes that we must go further and create a solid national emergency management agency that can provide training to combat forest fires, predict where fires are likely and if they are a danger, and then move resources there proactively.
“Yes, it will cost money, but if you prevent a Jasper, a Fort McMurray, to pay for itself,” he said, referring to the communities of Alberta devastated in recent years by fires.
“The status quo does not seem to be working. We are spending billions and billions of dollars in fire management expenses, but our burned area has quadrupled since the 1970s.”
