Canada faces severe wildfire season with nearly 1,000 active fires

Canada is facing one of the most intense wildfire seasons in its history, Prime Minister Mark Carney said, with nearly 1,000 active fires and about three million hectares, or 7.4 million acres, already burned.

The report said virtually all Canadian provinces and territories have been affected before the summer has reached its halfway point. The largest fire, in Ontario, has forced mass evacuations and sent smoke as far as the US East Coast.

Recent rain has slightly slowed the fires, but more than 200 fires remained out of control across the country on Monday. More than 5,000 firefighters and 300 water tankers have been deployed, along with the Canadian Armed Forces.

In Quebec, authorities said help from the United States and France arrived at the weekend to address heavy demands in the northwest of the province. Yves Bergeron, a professor at the Centre for Forest Studies at the University of Quebec at Montreal, said it was unrealistic to expect enough firefighters to extinguish all the fires, especially because many are in remote areas without road access. He said the priority should be protecting villages and infrastructure.

Canada has 270 million hectares of boreal forest, equal to 28 percent of the world's boreal zone. The report said boreal forests are naturally affected by lightning fires that can spread quickly through the canopy and are hard to control. Bergeron said that, unlike some Californian forests where thinning can be used as a preventive measure, dense boreal forests cannot be controlled in the same way.

Environment Canada said these trees need natural disturbances such as fire, but repeated and intense fires can prevent forests from regenerating. Heat waves, low rainfall and droughts contribute to more severe fire seasons. Bergeron said there is concern that the forest will become less resilient to climate change. He said it is normal for between 0.5 percent and 1.0 percent of Canadian forests to burn each year.

The current season remains far below the 2023 fire season, when nearly 18 million hectares burned. However, the report said the season could still reach new records, especially because low rainfall is forecast for northern and western Canada. Fires farther south and near settlements could lead to further evacuation orders, as happened on Monday in Ontario.

Bergeron said future planning should focus on prevention, including avoiding situations where villages are surrounded by forests. He said people will need to adapt to fires that are likely to intensify year after year.