The wrath of wildfires
Canada is on fire early again.
Thousands of people in western Canada are facing the wrath of wildfires this week amid severe drought. Some six thousand people were told to evacuate Fort McMurray, Alberta, where 90,000 residents were forced to flee during the 2016 wildfires. More than 3,000 others were ordered to leave Fort Nelson, British Columbia, where a fire is burning 2.5km (1.5 miles) from the town.
Evacuation alerts were also issued in the provinces of Alberta and Manitoba. Smoke from the fires has triggered air quality alerts in Canada and the US.
It’s only May. That’s early.
There are two common sources of wildfires in Canada: lightning and human beings, Gordon McBean, a geography and environment professor at Western University, told the BBC. Paul Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western University, noted that if a large storm is moving across Canada, the storm can cause lightning in one place that starts a fire and then in another place that starts a separate fire. But Canada’s vast land and warming temperatures because of climate change are also playing a part, Prof McBean said.
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For years, Canadian wildfire season started in July or August, but in the past 20 years the wildfire season has been starting earlier and earlier in the year, Mr Kovacs told the BBC.
This year’s wildfire season comes as the country reels from its worst fire season on record in 2023, when roughly 18.5m hectares of land had burned – an area about the size of North Dakota. On average, just 2.5m hectares typically burn in Canada each year.
On course to set another record then.
As I might have said before: Eventually there’ll be nothing left to burn and everything will be peachy.
Jape aside, I read in one of our major papers that wildfire fighters in the US are quitting in droves because they’re Federal employees and their pay hasn’t increased in a couple of decades. The longer season and higher size and intensity, thus lethality, of the fires is another reason.
We don’t have the vast boreal forests of Canada, but our US state and national forests collectively cover millions of hectares. My state, Michigan, probably has more than the average area, albeit second growth. Can’t help but think that continued warming and more frequent drought here and elsewhere make them a ticking bomb.
Seattle, where I live, is very close to the Cascades, which catch fire every autumn.