Canada faces one of its most intense fire seasons
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Smoke rising from the Matthew Creek wildfire west of Kimberly, British Columbia, on July 19.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MONTREAL – With nearly 1,000 active fires and an area as large as Belgium already burned, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says his country is facing one of the “most intense” wildfire seasons in its history.
Barely halfway through the summer, virtually all Canadian provinces and territories have been affected. The largest fire, in Ontario, has forced mass evacuations and spread smoke as far as the US East Coast.
Thousands of firefighters
While recent rainfall has slightly slowed the spread of the fires, more than 200 remained out of control across the country on July 20.
More than 5,000 firefighters and 300 water tankers have been mobilised, as well as the Canadian Armed Forces. So far, three million ha have burned.
Canadian Armed Forces Corporal Rhiann Nicol assisting residents onto a CC-130J Hercules transport aircraft during an evacuation due to wildfires in Fort Hope, Ontario, on July 19.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In Quebec, the authorities said assistance from the US and France arrived at the weekend to “address the significant workload” in the north-west of the province.
Still, Yves Bergeron, a professor at the Centre for Forest Studies at the University of Quebec at Montreal, said it is “unrealistic to think we would have enough firefighters to extinguish all these fires”, which are mostly in remote areas inaccessible by road.
“The important thing is to focus our energy on protecting villages and infrastructure,” Bergeron told AFP.
Repeated fires
Canada’s 270 million ha of boreal forest – that is forest in high-latitude environments – comprises 28 per cent of the world’s boreal zone. It is naturally affected by lightning fires that spread rapidly through the canopy and are difficult to control.
“Unlike Californian forests, where preventative measures can be taken through thinning, boreal forests, which are very dense, cannot be controlled,” Bergeron said.
These trees “need natural disturbances such as fires”, according to the government department Environment Canada, but suffer from repeated, intense fires that prevent them from regenerating. Heatwaves, low rainfall and droughts contribute to the intensification of these violent fire seasons.
Buildings in the Whitewater Lake First Nation community pictured in the aftermath of a wildfire in Ontario, Canada.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“There is real concern that the forest will become less resilient to climate change,” said Bergeron, who added it is normal for between 0.5 per cent and 1 per cent of Canadian forests to burn each year.
Summer prospects
While still far from the devastating 2023 fire season, when nearly 18 million ha went up in smoke, the current season could nevertheless reach new records, particularly due to the low rainfall forecast for Canada’s north and west.
Fires farther south, near settlements, could force the authorities to order new evacuations, as happened on July 20 in Ontario.
“In the future, we will need to focus on prevention, for example, by avoiding the possibility of villages being surrounded by forests,” Bergeron said, advocating for human adaptation to these fires, which are likely to intensify year after year. AFP