Climate change has doubled the chance of devastating wildfires in Canada

According to the analysis, the increase in the global average temperature of 1.4°C in relation to pre-industrial levels intensified hot and dry conditions in much of North America during the fire season, facilitating the occurrence and spread of flames. This year, the areas most affected by fire are located in the province of Ontario and the Northwest Territories.

Under the current scenario, fire-prone conditions like this season could occur once every two to six years in the Northwest Territories and every six to 15 years in Ontario, according to the study. In a no-warming scenario, the probability of fires like the ones now in northwestern Canada would be once every 40 years.

Currently, across Canada, there are almost 700 active fires, covering more than 3.8 million hectares, almost the size of the state of Rio de Janeiro, mainly in its extensive boreal forests. This year, more than 4,000 fires were recorded, and the fire season is expected to remain active until mid-October, raising fears about the impact of fire this summer in the country.

The Guardian recalls that Canada has been suffering from a sequence of destructive fire seasons since at least 2023. For the researchers responsible for the study, the climate crisis has increased the scale and intensity of the problem in a “fundamentally different” way compared to what was observed in the past.

“The geographic scope of these fires is frightening and demonstrates that, despite forest fire governance preparedness, adaptation alone will not be enough,” warned Theodore Keeping, an extreme weather expert at Imperial College London and co-author of the study. “We need to quickly transition away from fossil fuels to prevent events like this from becoming even more frequent.”

Canada's situation is not isolated. Bloomberg highlights that the current summer in the Northern Hemisphere is being marked by intense forest fires in several areas, especially in western North America, Western and Southern Europe, and Russian Siberia. Other regions of the world also suffer from fire, such as the Congo basin, in Africa, and the island of Borneo, in Indonesia.

The Climate Observatory highlights that emissions from forest fires are well above normal in at least 13 regions of the planet, according to data from the European Union's Copernicus monitoring system. In the USA, fires are emitting, on average, 878 thousand tons of carbon per day, a volume 180% higher than the average for the period. In Canada, emissions associated with fire reached 2.48 million tonnes of carbon, representing an increase of 134%. And in Europe, this increase is even more notable: in July, emissions were 787% above average, almost 9 times what was expected for the period.

AP, CBC, Folha, g1 and The Hill also shared the WWA attribution study on the fires in Canada.