Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was the worst in the nation’s history. More than 15 million hectares (37 million acres), an area roughly the size of Ireland, burned between April and October, a new study found. The ferocity of the fires was fueled by unusually hot and dry conditions across the boreal forest, which spans much of northern Canada. During the fire season, average temperatures were 2.2° Celsius (4° Fahrenheit) higher than average, the study found. Canada heated up twice as fast as the rest of the world in 2023, a year that broke global temperature records. Eight firefighters lost their lives battling the flames, while more than 230,000 people were forced to flee their homes in mass evacuations. Millions were exposed to hazardous air pollution from the unprecedented levels of thick smoke. The area burned was seven times larger than average, and more than twice the previous record, set in 1989 when 6.7 million hectares (17 million acres) burned — making 2023 the worst wildfire season on record in Canada. “I don’t think anyone ever thought that it was possible for so much [forest] to burn. This has shifted expectations of what’s possible,” said Piyush Jain, the study’s lead author, in a telephone interview. “It’s a precursor. Under continued warming, we’ll see similar conditions more frequently.” The higher temperature, consistent with global warming trends, created the perfect tinderbox: vegetation, dried out by persistent heat, ignited easily, allowing fires to spread uncontrollably. The intensity of the wildfires caused 140 pyrocumulonimbus events,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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