Canada’s 2024 wildfire season on track to be 2nd largest in last 20 years

By Jordan Omstead
The Canadian Press in Global News
September 25, 2024
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada

Canada’s wildfire season is on track to be the second largest in at least the past two decades, trailing only last year’s record-breaking season, federal officials said Wednesday. Officials said above-normal temperatures and drought conditions across parts of Canada have continued to drive fire activity, with 5.3 million hectares burned so far, though they caution that number is preliminary. Outside of last year’s roughly 15 million hectares burned, federal records indicate only three other seasons have topped five million hectares, and the last was in 1995. Yan Boulanger, a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada, said climate change has contributed to earlier starts and later ends to the wildfire season, turning fire into a year-round phenomenon. …Western Canada has, as expected, been hit hardest this year, with about 70 per cent of the total area burned falling in British Columbia, Alberta, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan, officials say.

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