Josh Johnston, a senior research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service, describes WildFireSat as his father’s dream. …Canada has had the technology and capability to remotely monitor fire hot spots and wildfire ignitions for a long time. …Canada needs WildFireSat now more than ever. But its launch, originally scheduled for 2029, has been complicated by a canceled contract and upstaged by alternative wildfire satellite systems that recently reached orbit. …WildFireSat received a major boost in 2022, when the federal government committed $169.9 million for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada to deliver and operate the wildfire-monitoring satellite system. …Spire Global received a stop work order for the microsatellites in March and the contract terminated by the federal government on April 23, 2026 for undisclosed reasons. …Less than three months after Spire’s contract was terminated, another purpose-built wildfire satellite system, called FireSat, took a major step forward — in the United States.