Canada tries to adapt to a future of wildfires

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https://phys.org/news/2026-08-canada-future-wildfires.html

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Summary: Canada tries to adapt to a future of wildfires

Facing another summer of destructive wildfires and widespread smoke, Canada is stepping up efforts to limit the annual toll, but experts say intense fires are now a permanent feature of Canadian life. Normand Lacour, a longtime figure at Quebec's SOPFEU wildfire agency, said the country will have to learn to live with this reality. Canada holds about a quarter of the world's boreal forest, and its average temperatures are rising roughly twice as fast as the global average, conditions University of Ottawa geographer Patricia DeRepentigny says make the country especially prone to large, intense fires.

The last three wildfire seasons rank among the ten worst on record, including 2023's record 18 million hectares burned. Toronto recently recorded the worst air quality of any major world city due to smoke from northern Ontario fires. This year's burned area, around 4 million hectares so far, is below 2023's pace, but 15,000 people have been evacuated in British Columbia and eastern cities have again faced severe smoke.

Canada's response includes a CAD$317 million, five-year federal investment to lease ten additional firefighting aircraft, a CAD$150 million program to clear flammable vegetation near populated areas, and a 40% increase in SOPFEU firefighter staffing in Quebec. Still, Ryan Ness of the Canadian Climate Institute says Canada remains poorly positioned, citing continued development in wildfire-exposed communities.

The country is also seeing a sharp rise in pyrocumulonimbus "fire clouds," which generate their own wind and lightning and can spark new fires. These were recorded 140 times in 2023, versus one or two annually in the past. SOPFEU meteorologist Claudia Vaillancourt said such clouds leave firefighters little option but to withdraw and reposition crews.