One Stat Speaks Volumes About Canada's Wildfires

Not yet halfway through the year, Canada has already surpassed its annual average for land burned. With numerous wildfires burning across five provinces, more than 7.8 million acres have gone up in flames so far this year, according to Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre data, topping the 25-year annual average of 7.3 million acres, reports the Washington Post. With climate change, wildfires are getting bigger and more intense. Some 13.2 million acres burned in 2024, but the 2023 season was the worst in Canadian history by far, with 42.9 million acres burned. Some speculate Canada could now be set to repeat that record-setting season.

"In terms of hectares burned by this date, we're on pace with 2023 right now," John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, tells the CBC. In 2023, "the amount of carbon blazed into the atmosphere was about three times the country's fossil fuel emissions," per Grist. The largest ongoing fire is Saskatchewan's Shoe Fire, encompassing 1.2 million acres. Another fire burning near Flin Flon, Manitoba, now covers more than 740,000 acres. Several other fires have grown larger than 500,000 acres. Moisture has lowered the risk of new fires eastward from Manitoba, but much of the west remains under high to extreme fire risk, per the Post. (More Canada stories.)