Canada is burning. Wildfires are consuming record-breaking chunks of the country thanks to a dry, hot spring. Choking smoke, increasingly common in Western Canada during fire season, blanketed more populous eastern cities and led to more coverage and concern for what’s happening when it comes to Canada’s wildfires. …Here’s a breakdown of how fires start and why they seem to be getting worse. Typically, nearly half of all wildfires in Canada are caused by lightning strikes, but that can vary from region to region and from month to month. …But according to the federal government, fires that start from lightning do the most damage, accounting for 67 per cent of land burned. Lightning-caused fires tend to occur in remote areas and several fires can start at once during a storm. …The great fires that have swallowed large swaths of Canada early this season were mostly accidental, human-caused infernos.