Canada is experiencing its second-worst wildfire season on record. Experts have become increasingly alarmed at what they say is climate change’s new “normal” for the country. Currently, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) has more than 470 active fires listed as “out of control.” And the 2025 fire season is already shaping up to be just as bad or worse than the truly catastrophic 2023 season. That year, a record 17,203,625 hectares burned nationwide.
That’s a massive scale of destruction that we should be really concerned about, with over 318,421 hectares already burned up by wildfires this year. This number is even more alarming, given that it is a 78% increase from the five-year average of 4,114,516 hectares. Mike Flannigan is BC research chair for predictive services, emergency management and fire science at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. He explains how climate change in the form of warmer temperatures is lengthening the fire season and worsening the occurrence of lightning strikes that start these fires.
“This is our new reality… the warmer it gets, the more fires we see,” Flannigan stated. He illustrated the issue by saying that the hotter things get, the more fuel there is to burn. Increasingly intense fires are resulting in larger flames that are more difficult to put out.
This year’s wildfires have particularly affected the prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. They make up about 60% of the total hectares burned so far.
Communities still impacted
Thirteen communities in north-west Saskatchewan, including a number of First Nations, are out under evacuation orders. To date, the Canadian Red Cross has supported the evacuation of over 17,000 people from more than 6,700 households and continues to help people evacuating from the fires.
Unprecedented wildfires have consumed millions of acres of forest and displaced tens of thousands of people across Canada. The majority of them have since fled to other countries. Smoke from these fires into mid-June has drastically affected air quality in much of Canada. It has produced deadly conditions across many states throughout the U.S. Officials have warned that air quality is reaching alarming levels, as smoke days blanket the area.
A June report co-authored by John Abatzoglou, a professor of complex systems management at the University of California, Merced, highlights the stark manifestation of climate change represented by these wildfires. Our analysis found climate change factors, including how warm and dry weather this past spring pushed temperatures 2.5°C over climate averages.
Experts express concern about the broader implications of these wildfires on public health and quality of life. According to one source, the consequences of wildfires go much deeper than just environmental destruction, taking a serious toll on human health and human lives. At the same time, the need for strong community resources to deal with acute smoke episodes is very urgently needed.
“I know communities that may not have great infiltration systems… so more efforts there to provide resources to communities so that they can be safe indoors during acute smoke periods,” another source emphasized.
As our neighbors to the north contend with this historic wildfire season, the increasingly interconnected impacts of climate change leave us all more vulnerable to worsening events. The country must now confront not only the immediate challenges posed by wildfires but consider long-term strategies to mitigate future risks and protect its communities.