Last year’s wildfire season was certainly historic, but how historic was it and what was the bigger ecological picture? The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute recently produced a science letter called “Effects of 2023 Wildfires in Alberta” that helps to make it easier for laypeople and decision-makers alike to understand the answers to both of those questions. …last year’s wildfires burned 6.6 per cent of the forested area of the province. At approximately 3.3 million hectares in size, that area disturbed as much forest in Alberta as the 11 previous wildfire years combined. “I think some readers of these large numbers get a little bit overwhelmed,” said applied ecologist Brandon Allen. “I think people’s minds go a little blank. We try to contextualize that to be an area similar to Vancouver Island. You could start to capture that a little bit of, ‘Oh, that’s a big place that was impacted by the fires.’”