Canada’s wildfire season is on track to become the second-largest in at least two decades, following last year’s record-breaking season, federal officials said Wednesday.
At a virtual technical briefing to provide an update on the wildfire season, federal government officials said Wednesday that above-normal temperatures and dry conditions in parts of Canada have continued to fuel fire activity, with 5.3 million hectares burned so far. And that figure is preliminary, they caution.
Beyond the roughly 15 million hectares burned in 2023, federal records show that only three other seasons have exceeded five million hectares, the last being in 1995.
Yan Boulanger, a scientist with the federal Department of Natural Resources, said climate change has contributed to earlier starts and later ends of the wildfire season, turning these large fires into a year-round phenomenon.
For the scientist, forest fires can no longer be considered seasonal events, but truly annual ones.
Boulanger points out that over the past decade, areas burned have exceeded the 25-year average in many years, largely due to extreme fire conditions and longer wildfire seasons — factors attributed to climate change.
As expected, Western Canada has been hit hardest this year: About 70 per cent of the total area burned in Canada was in British Columbia, Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan, according to federal officials. Fires are still burning in those regions.
The junction of British Columbia, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, in particular, could see continued fire activity through the winter, given the warm, dry conditions forecast for at least the next month.
“We must remain vigilant all year round to avoid starting fires,” said Mr. Boulanger.
Officials say all 792 foreign firefighters who came to help throughout the year have now returned home.
In Quebec, the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu (SOPFEU) indicated at the beginning of September that the number of fires to date was, however, well below the ten-year average, “for an area that is, however, fully average, excluding the titanic 2023 season.”