Drought, heat raise risk of wildfires

A warmer-than-normal winter and dry conditions heighten fears of a repeat of 2023 season

This article was written by Mia Rabson and was published in the Toronto Star on April 11, 2024.

Persistent drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said Wednesday as they warned about the urgent need to address climate change.

“We can expect that the wildfire season will start sooner, end later and potentially be more explosive,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan told a news conference Wednesday.

The 2023 fire season was Canada’s worst on record, with more than 6,600 fires burning more than 15 million hectares, an area almost twice the size of Lake Superior. It forced more than 230,000 people from their homes — including the entire city of Yellowknife — and created unprecedented smoke conditions across much of the country and into the United States.

Eight firefighters died battling the blazes and Canada expects to spend more than $750 million in disaster assistance alone. That does not include the billions of dollars spent fighting the fires in the first place.

A briefing document forecasting the fire risk for this spring shows conditions are already ripe for an early and above-normal fire risk from Quebec all the way to British Columbia in both April and May.

The forecast is based on having had a warmer-than-normal winter with minimal snow and widespread drought, particularly in the Prairies. There is also a high probability for above-normal temperatures in April, May and June. Western Canada, eastern Ontario and western Quebec are currently facing the highest risk.

The briefing includes a caveat that forecasting precipitation levels is not very reliable so the warnings are based on current conditions, and could change if more rain falls this spring than is currently expected.

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre lists 65 fires already burning, mainly in B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories. More than half are fires that started in 2023, smouldered underground throughout the winter and have since re-emerged. Most of the fires currently burning are under control.

Human activity is typically the main fire risk factor in the spring, said Michael Norton, the director general of the Northern Forestry Centre at Natural Resources Canada. Preventing fires from starting in the first place is critical, and in the spring most fires are humancaused, including through careless burning, campfires, fireworks, and the heat from off-road vehicles igniting grass or other debris on the ground.

Lightning becomes a primary source of wildfires during the summer, once thunderstorms become more common.

About 70 per cent of the fires between January and May 2023 were started by humans, compared with fewer than 20 per cent of the fires that started in June, July and August.

The low level of snow in most of Canada is among the key reasons for the higher risks this spring. British Columbia’s snowpack for April is at a record low 67 per cent, said Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the BC River Forecast Centre.

“Typically speaking, drought and wildfire go hand in hand, so it’s not setting up to be a great season,” Boyd said.

“But it still just depends on what the weather conditions are. If we have last year’s spring weather conditions this year, it will be worse.”

Sajjan said Canada and the provinces and territories have been working for months to prepare for a bad fire season this year and will be ready.

That includes more equipment and more trained firefighters, said Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Ottawa now has agreements with 11 of the 13 provinces and territories to deliver $256 million in firefighting equipment, including trucks, drones and planes.

Wilkinson also said the 2022 promise to train 1,000 firefighters over five years may end up producing that many before the end of 2024. Some of that training includes urban firefighters, who need additional training to handle wildfires as they increasingly bear down on cities and towns.

Preventing fires from starting in the first place is critical, and in the spring most fires are humancaused, including through careless burning, campfires, fireworks, and the heat from off-road vehicles igniting grass or other debris on the ground

Author: Ray Nakano

Ray is a retired, third generation Japanese Canadian born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. He resides in Toronto where he worked for the Ontario Government for 28 years. Ray was ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2011 and practises in the Plum Village tradition, supporting sanghas in their mindfulness practice. Ray is very concerned about our climate crisis. He has been actively involved with the ClimateFast group (https://climatefast.ca) for the past 5 years. He works to bring awareness of our climate crisis to others and motivate them to take action. He has created the myclimatechange.home.blog website, for tracking climate-related news articles, reports, and organizations. He has created mobilizecanada.ca to focus on what you can do to address the climate crisis. He is always looking for opportunities to reach out to communities, politicians, and governments to communicate about our climate crisis and what we need to do. He says: “Our world is in dire straits. We have to bend the curve on our heat-trapping pollutants in the next few years if we hope to avoid the most serious impacts of human-caused global warming. Doing nothing is not an option. We must do everything we can to create a livable future for our children, our grandchildren, and all future generations.”