With fires particularly affecting Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and part of Ontario, Canada is going through a major season of forest fires for a third year. A sign of a new reality for the country? Yes, and it is intimately linked to climate change, estimates the expert in forest fires Mike Flannigan.
“At the national level, it is very possible that we see seasons of active fires each year. I wouldn’t have said that a few years ago, ”said the researcher, who is also a scientific director of the Center for Research, Education, Training and Innovation on Forest Fees at Thompson Rivers, British Columbia, where he is also a professor.
“There will always be cooler times [et donc moins propices aux feux de forêt] regionally. But when we look at the entire country, it will be a bit like Whack-a-mole [jeu de la taupe] : One year, it will be Manitoba, another, Quebec, illustrates the professor. As the weather conditions conducive to fires are increasing, we may be witnessing a bad season each year, or at least what we would have historically called a bad fire season. It will become our new reality. »»
Historically, there have always been breaks after one or two years with large forest fires, recalls Mr. Flannigan. But this is no longer the case: “There is nothing comparable in our data over three years with such burnt area, more than 7 % of forests [canadiennes] in the last seasons. We are entering unknown territory, ”he believes.
How is a forest fire
How can an increase in temperature be linked to an increase in fires? To answer it, you have to look at the fire “recipe”: fuel (vegetation, in the case of forest fires), diet (for forest fires in Canada, food comes mainly from human intervention or lightning) and conducive weather (wind and heat).
For fires like the one in 2024 of the Jasper National Park, in Alberta, it is mainly the wind, and not the heat, which contributed to its spread, explains Mike Flannigan. For more distances fires, like those in Quebec in 2023, the impact of heat is greater, for three reasons.
“The more hot it is, the longer the fire season, the more opportunities to burn,” said Lieur Mr. Flannigan. Then comes the increased presence of lightning, linked to the rise in temperature, and finally, the drying up of the fuel. “This is probably the most important reason,” he says.
“The ability of the atmosphere to absorb the humidity of the dead fuels present on forestry soil quickly increases with temperature and, unless we have more rain to compensate for the drying effect of higher temperatures, we will have drier fuels,” explains Mike Flannigan.
A solution on which Canada cannot necessarily count, since “most models of the future suggest that we will not receive enough rain [pour compenser l’assèchement] ».
A drier vegetation is easier to light and therefore more inclined to start a fire, whether with a human intervention, with a campfire for example, or by lightning, continues the researcher. As there is more fuel available to burn when the vegetation is dry, “the intensity of the fire also becomes higher and the flames are larger, which sometimes makes it difficult to extinguish it by direct interventions”.
To illustrate this increase in forest fires linked to climate change, the professor explains that in British Columbia, more hectares were burned between 2017 and 2025 than between 1950 (year of the start of data collection) and 2016.
As for Canada, “if we take an average over 10 years, the burned area has almost quadrupled compared to the early 1970s. During this period, around 1 million hectares burned on average each year. Today, we are about 4 million hectares. ”
A record year?
The 2023 fire season has entered history as the most devastating season in Canada. Everything indicates that it will keep this title, at least for the current year. If 2025 is much less devastating with regard to forest fires, current forecasts show that the season could still be the second more serious ever recorded in Canada, says Alexandria Jones, communication manager at the Interservices Center for Forest Forest Fires, a federal organization that analyzes and lists forest fires daily.
As a comparison, dated July 20, 11 million hectares had burned in 2023, while 5.8 million has already gone in flame in 2025, she reveals.
“It’s still a very big season,” warns Mr.me Jones, who also maintains that “the majority of experts agree that the forest fire season begins earlier in the year, lasts longer and becomes more serious”. Generally, the forest fire season extends from May to September.
For his part, Mike Flannigan “expects” that 2025 ends second in the ranking, but reserves to assert it, as the season is not yet over.
Repercussions and solutions
Who says more forest fires says more repercussions, such as increasing material damage or a less good capacity of the nature to regenerate, but also a greater amount of smoke, which can cause multiple health problems. “And the problem with smoke is that it can spread over long distances, as we saw in 2023 in New York, where smoke came from fires that occurred 1000 kilometers away, in northern Quebec,” explains Mike Flannigan.
What to do to compose with this potential new reality where forest fires are increasingly commonplace? Reducing global warming would be the first, and the most important step, supports the professor.
In addition, to close the forests when there are risks of fire and to offer better education could help reduce the fires caused by humans. Building better suitable buildings could also have a great effect, he continues.
The researcher also sees a necessary adjustment in the way Canada is preparing for the lights. “We are often in reaction, and not proactive,” he said, giving the example of Quebec firefighters who want to both help another province, while having to prepare for their own fires.
“We should consider creating federal emergency organizations to manage earthquakes, floods and fires. To be proactive and have additional resources where there is a need, ”pleads Mike Flannigan.
“Fires are a multidimensional problem, and we need a solution with several components. There is no miracle solution, ”summarizes the expert.