Another wave of wildfire smoke has drifted into the US, dimming blue summer skies and igniting troubling concerns regarding the increasing frequency of fires, and what they have to do with climate change.
More than 100 million people are under air quality alerts from Wisconsin to Vermont and down to North Carolina as smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to waft south, though conditions are expected to improve slowly into the holiday weekend.
Air quality on both sides of the border has been affected as more than 500 active wildfires raging across Canada. Some fires are so out of control officials have no choice but to leave them burning.
Meanwhile, at least 10 countries have deployed their own firefighters to assist Canada with putting out the ones threatening communities whose residents have scrambled to evacuate.
Scientists continue to reiterate warnings the effects of climate change have arrived, emphasizing wildfires and the plumes of toxic smoke generated by them will become more frequent.
As plumes of smoke billow out of Canada鈥檚 forests, some may be wondering why many of the fires are being allowed to burn unchecked.
Here鈥檚 why:
SOME OF THE FIRES ARE IN EXTREMELY REMOTE AREAS
While every Canadian province responds to the fires in their regions differently, they all have common guidelines emphasizing the importance of prioritizing which fires to fight and which to leave alone.
Massive fires burning in remote areas 鈥� like some of those currently burning in northwestern Quebec 鈥� are often too out of control to do anything about.
鈥淚f you have limited resources, and you have a lot of fires, what you do is you protect human life and property first,鈥� Robert Gray, a Canadian wildland fire ecologist, told CNN. 鈥淵ou protect people, infrastructure, watersheds, so there鈥檚 a prioritization system.鈥�
He added, 鈥淚f you鈥檝e got these fires that are burning way out in the back forty, and they鈥檙e not threatening anything immediately, then you鈥檙e going to have to let them do their thing.鈥�
While the thought of massive fires burning through millions of hectares of forestland might sound unfathomable, it isn鈥檛 entirely new.
鈥淭here鈥檚 always been fires Canadian fire managers don鈥檛 fight. It鈥檚 expensive to do so, ecologically undesirable, and kind of just messing with nature,鈥� said Daniel Perrakis, a fire scientist with the Canadian Forest Service.
鈥淭he smoke is a problem but even if we wanted to do something about it, it wouldn鈥檛 really be clear how to do so. You鈥檙e talking about huge areas where there鈥檚 no road access, no communities in some cases.鈥�
Of the 522 fires currently burning, 262 are listed as out of control across Canada, including British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
Along with remoteness and distance from people, terrain is another factor. Some of the fires are being allowed to burn simply because they are too treacherous for firefighters to even attempt to tackle.
鈥淭hese fires are so big that you really can鈥檛 put people anywhere near them, the winds kick up, they move very fast, they can start out ahead of you and they can trap crews,鈥� Gray said.
THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH RESOURCES TO FIGHT ALL THE FIRES
Firefighters from at least 10 countries, including the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, and France, have been deployed to assist with the Canadian wildfires since the first week of June.
鈥淐anada doesn鈥檛 have a lot of firefighting resources,鈥� Gray said. 鈥淚ndividual provinces have their own contracting crews, but they have brought in thousands of folks from outside the country to help.鈥�
One factor contributing to the lack of resources, evident in the current fight against the out of control fires, is funding, Gray acknowledged.
鈥淭hey don鈥檛 typically appropriate a lot of money upfront for firefighting,鈥� he continued. 鈥淏ut once the fires break out, the governments can certainly find all the money necessary to suppress them.鈥�
鈥淚nternational groups keep saying, you need to shift the focus to upfront mitigation and prevention so you鈥檙e spending less money on response and recovery,鈥� he added. 鈥淚t鈥檚 ridiculous. We spend billions of dollars once the fire breaks out, but we don鈥檛 invest the money upfront to mitigate the fires from happening in the first place.鈥�
NOT ENOUGH PREVENTION TACTICS TO DECREASE THE NUMBER OF FIRES
More work needs to be done to reduce the opportunity for future wildfires, which may someday end in catastrophic tragedy.
One of the most effective fire prevention tactics is through prescribed burns, which are fires set intentionally as part of a forest management plan to reduce the risk of more serious and damaging blazes.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 do anywhere near enough prescribed burning in BC,鈥� Gray said. 鈥淩ight now we鈥檙e burning about 10,000 hectares a year. The state of New Jersey burns more than we do here at BC.鈥�
Prescribed burns have been an important cultural and environmental tradition in Indigenous communities, who for thousands of years set low-intensity fires to rid the land of wildfire fuel like debris, scrub, undergrowth and certain grasses. Such fuel ignites easily, allowing for more intense flames, which are harder to fight.
The intentional burning practices can increase the forests鈥� resiliency and decrease the likelihood of future wildfires.
Perrakis echoed Gray鈥檚 sentiments: 鈥淚t would be very useful to have maybe 10 times or 20 times more prescribed burning than what we鈥檙e doing presently.鈥�
Since prescribed burns come with liability issues and pose a risk of ending in accidental unmanageable fires if not done correctly and at the right time, this will require more funding from the government and proper training.
鈥淲e would be removing the fuel from the fire before there鈥檚 even a fire,鈥� Perrakis said. 鈥淚t wouldn鈥檛 be used all across the Canadian countryside, but very strategically around communities and other values and will be in line with the local ecosystem.鈥�
Along with prescribed burns, other tactics, like large scale thinning, need to be ramped up, Gray said.
鈥淲e need large scale thinning in these forest types that don鈥檛 produce a lot of dimension lumber, so there鈥檚 a lot of small trees and we need to come to do something with them,鈥� he added. 鈥淲e can ship them into the bioeconomy, produce bioenergy markets, engineering, wood products; there鈥檚 a lot of things we can do with low value wood, and that鈥檚 a lot of what鈥檚 out there burning up right now.鈥�
THE ECOSYSTEM DEPENDS ON FIRES, AND CLIMATE CHANGE IS MAKING THEM WORSE
Fires have always served a vital ecological purpose on Earth, essential for many ecosystems. They restore soil nutrients, helping germinate plants and remove decaying matter. Without fires, overgrown foliage like grasses and shrubs can prime the landscape for worse flare-ups, particularly during extreme drought and heat waves.
Most of Canada is covered by boreal forest, the world鈥檚 largest and most intact biome. The ecosystem with trees like spruce, pine, and fir makes up about one-third of all forests on the planet.
But it is a fire dependent ecosystem, meaning the species in the forest have evolved in the presence of fire, and fire 鈥渋s an essential process for conserving biodiversity,鈥� according to the Nature Conservancy.
鈥淲e have records as far back as the 1700s and 1800s of yellow sky and black sky and smoky sky days.鈥� he added. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the natural cycle of the boreal forest. There really isn鈥檛 much Canadian fire management agencies can do, even if they wanted to.鈥�
While natural fires in the system have always been present and are usually caused by natural elements like lightning, climate change is making them more frequent, increasingly unmanageable, and a lot more difficult to prevent.
Two years ago, after enduring a record-breaking temperature of 49.6 degress Celsius (121 F), the British Columbia village of Lytton was levelled by a wildfire, drawing stark attention to the effects of climate change.
Heat-trapping emissions have led to hotter and drier conditions, and wildfires now burn longer and are becoming hotter in places where they have always occurred; meanwhile, fires are also igniting and spreading in unexpected places.
鈥淲e know that the weather is the most important ingredient of fire behaviour, and climate and weather are linked,鈥� Perrakis said.
Another issue is the increase in the wildfires are caused by climate change, and are simultaneously making climate change worse.
Boreal forests are carbon dense, releasing 10 to 20 times more planet-heating carbon pollution for each unit of area burned by wildfires than other ecosystems, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Science Advances. Over the years, researchers say it has become a vicious climate change feedback loop. The emissions from wildfires contributes to increasing global temperatures, which in turn fuel even more wildfires.
鈥淭hings are changing due to climate change, and that鈥檚 catching everyone somewhat by surprise, even though we鈥檝e been talking about it for decades,鈥� Perrakis said. 鈥淚t takes a big season like this one for everyone to really wake up to what climate change looks like. It鈥檚 pretty undeniable.鈥�
As Canadians near the fires evacuate while firefighters try to save their homes and communities, other, bigger fires burn freely with no way to control them, and people in the US will continue breathing in unhealthy smoke.
It all begs the question: When will it end?
鈥淧eople should probably get used to it, because it鈥檚 not something that has come out of nowhere,鈥� Perrakis said. 鈥淐limate change is undeniable, and now it鈥檚 time to think about the future, 10 or 20 years down the line, and what needs to be done.鈥�
