Road closures, evacuations, travel chaos and stern warnings from officials have become fixtures of Canada’s wildfire season. But as the country goes through its second-worst burn on record, the blazes come with a twist: few are coming from the western provinces, the traditional centre of destruction.
Instead, the worst of the fires have been concentrated in the prairie provinces and the Atlantic region, with bone-dry conditions upending how Canada responds to a threat that is only likely to grow as the climate warms.
Experts say the shift serves as a stark reminder that the risk of disaster is present across the thickly forested nation.
In recent weeks, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes due to the wildfires. Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been the worst hit, covering more than 60% of the area burned in Canada. But the fires have also seized strained resources in Atlantic Canada, where officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling to battle out-of-control blazes.
“Even though some parts of the country are having a wet year on average, things across the board are still warmer and drier than they were in the past.”
That uncertainty has prompted a multimillion-dollar funding effort from the federal government to study risk and adaptation, because “there are very few parts of Canada that would be totally protected from wildfire”, Baron said.