TORONTO — …rising global temperatures contribute to massive forest fires … in northern Canada. Canada currently has more active wildfires than it did at the same stage in ​either of the past two years, while the area burned so far this year exceeds the 10-year average. …Mike Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in BC, noted that warmer temperatures have prolonged the wildfire season and more lightning is also causing fires, he said. Climate scientist Andrew Dessler, a professor at Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences, said the Canadian fires were burning in largely unmanaged forests where, for the last one hundred years, they had been allowed to burn until they ​died out. Like Flannigan, he said higher temperatures were fueling bigger, more intense blazes in Canada. “The reason this is having a big effect on the U.S. right now is because of climate change, that’s the thing that ​has changed,” he said.