The Canadian Wildfires Are Still Burning: Experts Explain
The Canadian Wildfires Are Still Burning: Experts Explain
Senior Advisor, Climate Change & Sustainability
George Sutherland is a Senior Advisor with the BMO Climate Institute, working at the intersection of climate science, policy, and finance to understand and man…
George Sutherland is a Senior Advisor with the BMO Climate Institute, working at the intersection of climate science, policy, and finance to understand and man…
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By the end of June, Canada was already experiencing its worst wildfire season in recorded history. Hundreds of out-of-control infernos had incinerated more than 8.8 million hectares of land – an area greater than New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island combined – threatening the lives and homes of countless Canadians.
In an effort to address the impact these events are having on the country, George Sutherland, Senior Advisor, Climate Change & Sustainability with the BMO Climate Institute, sat down with Mike Flannigan, the B.C. Innovation Research Chair in Predictive Services, Emergency Management and Fire Science at Thompson Rivers University, and Ray Ault, Director of Prevention and Mitigation with FireSmart Canada.
“We’re in new territory,” said Flannigan, who is also the Science Director of the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science. “We’re not even into the middle of fire season, and we’ve already broken the previous record.
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Wildfire Risk Is Rising
During the discussion, Flannigan explained the simple ingredients that go into creating a wildfire. They include fuel (in the form of vegetation), an ignition source (humans or lightning), and dry, hot, windy weather. “The warmer we get, the more wildfires we’ll see,” he said.
As global temperatures increase, fire season arrives earlier and lasts longer, lightning becomes more frequent, and the vegetation feeding the flames grows drier and more combustible.
Building a National Wildfire Strategy
The experts agreed that the only way to make a meaningful move in the opposite direction is for governments worldwide to act in concert to deal with the effects of human-caused climate change. Failing that, Flannigan said the country needs to be more proactive in addressing human-caused fires, even if it means taking the unpopular step of closing off forested areas in advance of extreme fire weather. Canada could also be better at quickly moving firefighters from one province to another once the flames have begun. “We seem to be reactive,” he said. “We respond after the events are already ongoing – that’s too late.”
Sutherland, who worked as a fire researcher earlier in his career, noted the approach to fighting wildfires is changing, pointing to the Canadian government’s recently released National Adaption Strategy. The report outlines a plan to work with communities in high-risk wildfire zones, including northern and Indigenous communities, to develop prevention and mitigation plans by 2030 – with 15% of those plans in place by 2028.
Flannigan described the National Adaption Strategy as a step in the right direction, but he said the country needs to devise and implement an emergency management plan for every community. “We need to be better at making informed decisions on what to do with each individual fire,” he said. “We’ve started down that path, but we’ve got some ways to go.”
The Economic Impact of Wildfires
Not all fires are bad. Forest fires are a natural phenomenon, typically caused by lightning, and have critical function in our ecological systems as they clear out old vegetation and make room for new growth. But as Sutherland explained, the challenge is when those fires get out of control and interact with humans in our built environment.
Those impacts can be severe. On the one hand, it’s relatively easy to assess the economic damage incurred by Canada’s wildfires – the Fort McMurray fires in 2016 had an estimated total cost of just under $9 billion1, for example – but the mental and health impact these events have on Canadians are harder to quantify.
“The impact on people is significant,” said Ray Ault. “In one afternoon, that community fabric is torn in such a way that it will never be repaired. It will be a different community in the future – some of those people just won’t be there. It’s difficult all the way around for families.”
Building Wildfire Resiliency in Communities
One of FireSmart’s goals is to build wildfire resilience at the community level by teaching people about the dangers they face. “We call these community wildfire protection plans,” Ault said. “It helps the community quantify their wildfire hazard risks and then develop a plan to mitigate those risks.”
In addition to increasing awareness of an important issue, putting these plans to paper can help interested communities approach the government in search of funding for their efforts. On a practical level, it teaches communities what they need to do should a fire approach their city limits. “When you actually have a fire, you have a control plan,” he said. “You know where the water is going to come from, where the crews are going to go, where your critical infrastructure is, and what things you need to protect. It’s a really useful tool.”
The organization also provides information to help individual homeowners mitigate their personal risk. This involves educating residents to identify flammable items and ensure the area surrounding their homes becomes a non-combustible zone. “Most people don’t realize that it’s not a wall of fire that threatens your home,” he said. “It’s a bunch of little burning sticks and embers, and some of them are less than three centimeters in length. If the weather conditions are right for a fire and these embers land on an ignitable surface, it creates a flame.”
Ultimately, when an area is threatened by a fire, it takes the efforts of an entire community to keep everyone safe. “It’s very difficult for the province to respond to all of those fires,” Ault said. “There just aren’t enough firefighters, fire engines and planes. If residents have organized, taken action and helped mitigate their risk, it can make a massive difference. FireSmart Canada helps folks understand how they can get started.”
1 MacEwan University Report
Ray Ault:
However you look at wildfire today, there are costs that we can measure that are economic, but there are other costs that are more difficult to quantify, and those are the sort of the health impacts, both physical health and mental health.
Michael Torrance:
Welcome to Sustainability Leaders. I'm Michael Torrance, chief sustainability officer with BMO Financial Group. On this show, we will talk with leading sustainability practitioners from the corporate, investor, academic, and NGO communities to explore how this rapidly evolving field of sustainability is impacting global investment business practices and our world.
Speaker 3:
The views expressed here are those of the participants and not those of Bank of Montreal, its affiliates or subsidiaries.
George Sutherland:
Hi there. My name is George Sutherland from the BMO Climate Institute. In today's episode of Sustainability Leaders, we'll be talking about trends in wildfires and the intersection with our social and economic systems, as well as the actions that people, communities, and governments can take to help mitigate these impacts. To help me unpack this topic, I'm joined by Mike Flannigan, who is the research chair for predictive services, emergency Management and fire science at Thompson Rivers University, as well as the scientific director of the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science. I'm also joined by Ray Ault, director of prevention and mitigation with FireSmart Canada. Thank you both for joining me today.
Mike Flannigan:
Great to be with you George.
Ray Ault:
George, thanks very much.
George Sutherland:
Mike. To begin, can you describe the wildfire trends that are being observed this year?
Mike Flannigan:
Sure. Well, there's about 6,000 fires a year in Canada on average during the last 10 years, that burn about 2.7 million hectares, that's about half the size of Nova Scotia, in average year. Of course, 2023 is not an average year. Those fires, in spring, human caused fires dominate. In summer, lightning caused fires dominate and it's about 50/50. But in terms of area burned, the lightning caused fires are responsible for 80 to 90% of the area burned.
Now, the trends we've been seeing is that human caused fires are going down and this is great and this may be because of education and things like fire bans, but the lightning cause fires have more than compensated for it in terms of area burned. Our area burned has doubled since the 1970s, so we're seeing more area burned and 2023 is already at record-breaking. We've never seen this much area burned in our modern record, it's over 8 million hectares, which is the size of New Brunswick and I'll throw in Prince Edward Island as well. So it's a huge area. So we're seeing less human cause fires, which is great because they are preventable, but we're seeing more area burn from the lightning caused virus and we expect lightning caused fires to increase with future warming. So those are the trends we're seeing right now.
George Sutherland:
So how do these trends compare to what has been experienced historically?
Mike Flannigan:
So here we are towards the end of June and we're over 8 million hectares, which is more than we've seen in our modern day record, which goes back to 1959. But what is really surprising is it's June, our busiest fire month is July. So we're not in into the middle of the fire season and we've already broken the previous record. Also very unexpected about this fire season is the broad geographical coverage. It started in the West with record-breaking heat in May and May fires in Alberta are not uncommon, but it was also BC. Northwest Territories was on fire in May, and that's really unusual and that spread to the East. But meanwhile, the West was still burning. And then Quebec caught in fire early June with a massive lightning storms that set the forest ablaze. And Quebec's had bad fires before, 2013 was a bad fire year but they were farther north. This is north and the central and southern areas in which is really unusual.
So it's a very crazy year. There's no context or analog for this in our modern record, we're in new territory. And the research I've done suggested we'd see increases in the West earlier in this century as we go later into this century they'd pick up in the East. Well, perhaps it's already happening now in the East this year. We'll have to see if we see this trend continue. It's not just Canada, but it could be Eastern United States could see a lot more fire as we continue to warm.
George Sutherland:
And what are the factors contributing to these trends?
Mike Flannigan:
So maybe I'll back up a bit. There's a recipe for a wildfire and it's a simple recipe and it's universal, it applies to Canada, United States, the Amazon, Australia, you name it. First thing you need is vegetation, how much, what type, how dry, all important aspects. Second, ignition. People and lightening, as we just discussed. Third is hot, dry, windy weather. So it's extreme conditions that drive the fire world. You get all three, you have a fire. In Canada, 3% of the fires burn 97% of the area burned. Western United States is even more dramatic. 1% of the fires burn 99% of the area burned. And much of this happens on a relatively small number of days of extreme fire weather. Now we often bat around these numbers, area burned, number of fires, but it's really about impact and hopefully as we go along this podcast, we'll talk about impact.
George Sutherland:
We certainly will dive into those impacts. But just before we do, you mentioned that one of the ingredients for wildfire is hot, dry, and windy weather. Can you unpack a bit further how climate change factors into this equation?
Mike Flannigan:
So the warmer we get the more fire we see in Canada, and people say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why is temperature so important?" First, our fire season's getting longer, more opportunities to burn. Second, the warmer it gets the more lightning we expect, and the more lightning you expect, the more lightning cause fires we expect. Third reason is probably the most important, as the temperature increases, the ability of the atmosphere to suck moisture, to dry those fuels increases really, really quickly. And unless we see more rain to compensate for this drying effect, we're going to get drier fuels. And our models of the future suggest we're not going to see increases in rain during our fire season To compensate for this. The bottom line is drier fuels, and this is a critical element to understanding fire, is that the drier the fuel, the easier it is for a fire to start, easier it is for a fire to spread. And it means more fuels available to burn, which leads to these high intensity fires that are difficult to impossible to extinguish through direct attack.
So a warmer world means more fire, more smoke, and that's the new reality.
George Sutherland:
Well, I think that's a great segue into the economic and social spheres. And just to frame this, it's worth noting that wildfires are a naturally occurring phenomenon and they aren't inherently bad. There are tree species that rely on wildfire to reproduce and some ecosystems rely on fire to clear out old vegetation and make room for new growth. It's of course, when wildfires interact with humans and our built environment that we experience negative impacts. So Ray, let's talk about what some of the economic impacts of wildfire can be.
Ray Ault:
Yeah, so it's hard to measure these impacts, I think that's one of the challenges that we face. And so the easy measurement is insurable losses or insured damage. I read something a couple weeks ago about the 2016 fire in Fort McMurray, 2,400 buildings damaged. The current accounting is 8.9 billion. It's hard to fathom that kind of an impact, and that doesn't relate to the social impacts. So I think however you look at wildfire today, there are costs that we can measure that are economic, but there are other costs that are more difficult to quantify. And those are the health impacts, both physical health and mental health. And I think that this is an area that more research is going to need to be done. It is certainly having a devastating impact socially on those small communities that are impacted by wildfire.
George Sutherland:
And Mike, what comes to mind for you in terms of the economic impacts?
Mike Flannigan:
So currently we spend about a billion dollars a year on direct fire management expenditures. And these are increasing more rapidly than the area burned numbers and will continue to increase as we see more and more fire in the future. This year we've had over 100,000 people evacuated and numerous communities from sea to sea. And we can put dollars and cents to a house that's been burned down and the cost of evacuations, they're significant and increasing. And unfortunately, they affect First Nations people more than the rest of the communities because many of these communities are remote and northern. The Boreal Forest, it survives and thrives in its regime of semi-regular stand replacing, stand renewing fires. It's a fire adapted ecosystem, so it's used to fire. And we have communities dotted all across this boreal forest and the fire bumps into these communities at times and sometimes with unfortunate consequences.
George Sutherland:
And of course there are also social impacts associated with wildfire. And I wonder if you could speak to those, Ray?
Ray Ault:
Yeah, and so, George, I'd like to give you an example. So in 2021, there was a wildfire that burnt through the community of Lytton, small town in British Columbia. The fire destroyed most of the community. Over 1,000 people lost their homes. So those are the numbers that we can look at. But if you think about how that would affected it, there's no little leak. The kids, they've got nowhere to live. So now you've totally disrupted the community. And this month, it's two years since that fire happened, lots of work has gone into preparing the site, but just now after two years they're at the point where they can start looking at rebuilding the homes. So, the impact on people is significant. I think that because this is a relatively new phenomenon in Canada, we're not used to seeing... I mean, we had Kelowna in 2003, Slave Lake, Fort McMurray, but those were really, almost, you would think anomalies, but now they're increasingly frequent.
And so I think that the challenge is, is that folks don't really expect that it's going to happen to them and when it does, it's a little bit like COVID, it completely disrupts their lives. And I think it's difficult mentally. And I think that that's something that the uncertainty, not knowing what's going to happen, and this is relatively new, these disasters at this level, people are covered by insurance, but of course it's more than money.
George Sutherland:
So with these being the impacts, let's talk about what we can do to mitigate them and whether there are examples of where this is being done well. And Ray, I know this is a primary objective for FireSmart Canada.
Ray Ault:
So I work with FireSmart Canada. One of our goals is to build wildfire resilience at the community level. And we start with helping people become aware of what their wildfire risk is. So, that's really a key piece is that lots of folks don't recognize that. And it's not just forest fires, grass fires are a significant challenge across the country in places that people wouldn't necessarily expect. So, that awareness piece is really important. And then we need to provide folks with a pathway or framework that they can follow. Where do I get started? What do I need to do? And then there needs to be some resources to support that. And that tends to be around funding and capacity.
So you really get started with, once you've built that sort of awareness then you start looking at assessing wildfire risk. So one of the things that I will talk about is the development of a community plan. We call these community wildfire protection plans, and they're used across the country to varying levels. But what it does is it helps the community quantify their wildfire hazard and risk and then develop a plan around it so that they can over time mitigate those risks. And I think we would all agree that it's very difficult without a plan to prioritize which actions actually you should be taking and to gain public support. And so those community wildfire protection plans are really a key piece. Those are some of the things that can be done.
Another, the neighborhood recognition program at FireSmart Canada, so this is really a small scale, 20 to 50 homes, residents working together to better prepare for wildfire. So it's smaller than a community wildfire protection plan. It actually, in many cases it doesn't involve government at all. It's just neighbors working together, first of all, train professional comes in and does an assessment, works with the neighbors on what their priorities are, and then over a five-year plan on how they're going to action that.
And so I want to give you an example of how powerful these community wildfire protection plans are. The Northwest Territories has 32 communities, 29 of them are at risk of wildfire. And so the Government from the Northwest Territories has done community wildfire protection plans for 29 communities. They took those plans and they were able to show what their needs were and they could quantify them. And they went to the federal government and they've received $20 million over 10 years to address those plans. So it's a really powerful tool.
British Columbia has, it's a similar plan but it's called Community Wildfire Resilience Plan. And there are several of them across the province, and they use these plans to do two things. It's a plan for the local government, but it's a way to engage with the residents so that they can identify what their priorities are, what they value most, because there's often trade-offs. And so these plans are really useful. So on the planning piece and the funding piece, they're really useful. But then when you actually have a fire, well, you have a control plan. You know if you're going to use the hydrants, where the water's going to come from, where the crews are going to go, where your critical infrastructure is, what things you need to protect first and foremost.
George Sutherland:
So it sounds like there's a strong role for government to play as well as at the community level, but what about at the individual homeowner level?
Ray Ault:
Well, FireSmart Canada provides resources that residents can use to help them mitigate their wildfire risk. I think one of the things that I spoke earlier about, wildfire awareness, most folks don't realize that it's not a wall of fire that threatens your home, it's a bunch of little burning sticks, embers, and some of them are less than three centimeters in length. And the process is that these embers can blow out in front of the main fire up to two kilometers away, and they land in your cedar hedge or they land in the bark mulch beside your home. And because it's dry, because the weather conditions are right for a fire, this ember or these embers land on ignitable surface and it creates a flame. And that flame then lights something adjacent. And that is how your house actually catches on fire.
And so what we're working with residents to do is identify what those flammable items are close to their home, we call it the non-combustible zone. It's from the surface out one and a half meters. And so if you can minimize the ignition potential by removing ignitable materials close to your home, the chances of your home surviving is much, much higher. And I think most homes in Canada are class A asphalt or metal and so these are all fire resistant and embers can land on them, they don't ignite the roof. And so it's really, you're worried about embers lodging up next to the house and catching something small on fire, building that flame length that then involves the home. And so our programs are really focused on helping residents identify what they can do to better prepare their home for wildfire.
George Sutherland:
Now, I think that leads to the obvious question. Where can people go for additional resources?
Ray Ault:
There are a couple of good resources. FireSmart Canada or FireSmartCanada.ca, FireSmart Alberta and FireSmart BC. These are the provincial chapters of Fires Smart. And so if you live in BC or Alberta or Nova Scotia, they have FireSmart programs specific to their residents, and you can find the really local information that would be useful.
George Sutherland:
And Mike, what resources would you highlight for people who want to stay informed on wildfire risk around them?
Mike Flannigan:
So there's a number of websites that we can go to for additional resources, and it depends what kind of information you're looking for. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre has up-to-date information on number of fires, area burned, mobilizations and where this year stacks up compared to previous years. So that's one great site. The Canadian Forest Service has an information system and it can tell you what the current fire weather conditions are across the country and what they're going to be like for the next couple of weeks.
George Sutherland:
We'll certainly include those resources in the show notes for this episode. Ray and Mike, thank you both very much for joining me to discuss trends in wildfire activity, how this intersects with our economy, and what we can do to mitigate these impacts. Stay tuned for more episodes of Sustainability Leaders where we will host leading experts and continue to explore the impacts of climate change on our social, financial, and natural systems.
Michael Torrance:
Thanks for listening to Sustainability Leaders. This podcast is presented by BMO Financial Group. To access all the resources we discussed in today's episode and to see our other podcasts, visit us at bmo.com/sustainabilityleaders. You can listen and subscribe free to our show on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider, and we'll greatly appreciate a rating and review and any feedback that you might have. Our show and resources are produced with support from BMO's Marketing Team and Puddle Creative. Until next time, I'm Michael Torrance. Have a great week.
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