The most intense fire activity has shifted its focus westward over recent days, partly a result of high heat in the country’s west and increased rainfall in central Canada.
The wildfires, mostly burning in dense boreal forest, continue to send thick smoke far from the source.
Much of south-west and south-central Canada is under an air quality alert today, including the cities of Edmonton and Regina, where air quality reached Code Red levels in the morning.
Some locations closer to Alberta experienced hazardous air quality.
Multiple massive fires of greater than 100,000ha are ongoing in five provinces.
Where the fires are
British Columbia has two of those huge out-of-control conflagrations, among 86 active wildfires there, and including one closing in on 200,000ha in the province’s far north that is suspected to have carried over from last year after smouldering through the winter. Another to its south grew rapidly during recent days, past 120,000ha, leading to evacuation orders for rural indigenous First Nations regions on Monday NZT.
Alberta to the east has 60 active fires, five of which are 50,000ha or larger and classified as out of control. The largest fire, sparked by lightning and mostly burning north of Edmonton, in oil country and forestland, was past 130,000ha as of Tuesday.
Saskatchewan’s Shoe Fire - 160km north of Saskatoon - is the largest in the nation overall, now past 500,000ha in size. Despite improving conditions, evacuations from 33 rural communities continue, according to local reports. The entire area had notable rainfall in recent days, which has assisted in reducing imminent risks. Hotspots persist, especially on the southern flank.
Manitoba has five out-of-control fires greater than 50,000ha, the largest of which has blackened more than 300,000ha near Flin Flon, on the province’s western border with Saskatchewan. Another northeast of Winnipeg has scorched more than 215,000ha. Both have grown much more slowly in recent days thanks to increased moisture.
Ontario’s largest blaze is at least 150,000ha, while a number of fires are also surrounding Kenora in the province’s south-west. Like blazes in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, those in Ontario have generally been subdued by recent wetter conditions.
The moisture in the central and eastern portion of the country has lowered the risk of new fires in the short term, with much of the region from Manitoba eastward now at low to moderate fire danger, according to Natural Resources Canada.
Fire weather remains considerably more volatile in the west, where much of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia are under high to extreme risk.
And while the threat has decreased in the central portion of the country recently, it could quickly bounce back should drier and warmer air make a return. The next round of above-normal temperatures is forecast there by the weekend.
Fire season in Canada usually peaks during the summer to early autumn, although recent years have tended to see that extended on both ends.
Canada has experienced warming at at least two times faster than the rest of the globe.
Traced to human-caused climate change, warmer temperatures are leading to less snow, shorter and milder winters and earlier onset of the summertime conditions that foster fires.
Experts have warned that this year may echo the unprecedented destruction of 2023.
When fires that season scorched through 17.3 million hectares, it outdid the previous top year by more than eight times the average.
