Note to clients: We used to douse wildfires. Now, we’re just trying to contain them

Increasingly hot, dry weather in Canada is leading to more intense wildfires, changing fire-fighting strategies from putting the fires out to simply containing them, says a new study published in Canadian Journal of Forest Research.

“As fire intensity and fire size increases, suppression options become limited; at the most extreme end resulting in conditions that are no longer safe or feasible by direct attack and only a change in weather and fuels will reduce the fire behaviour,” say the study’s authors, Chelene C. Hanes, Piyush Jain, Weiwei Wang, Xianli Wang, Marc-André Parisien, John M. Little, and Mike D. Flannigan.

The authors refer to conditions in which fires are raging overnight, which challenges firefighting resources.

“Fire managers have observed a growing frequency of high intensity fires in recent decades, which may lead to more frequent overnight burning events, thereby challenging suppression.”

The authors’ study builds on a previous study of fire behaviour that used data obtained from 1959 to 2015. The updated study, Fire regime changes in Canada: an update, analyzes additional data for the years 2016 through to 2024.   

Overall, the number of large wildfires (more than 200 hectares) has increased by an average of 3.4 annually between 1959 and 2024, the study shows.

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“Area burned has continued to increase nationally, although the rate of increase has slowed slightly (13%) when compared to [the original study period of 1959-2015],” the study notes.

The study attributes the slight overall decrease to the decline of the areas burned by smaller-sized fires. “The emerging trend points to a greater proportion of AAB [average acreage burned] being consumed by the largest fires (>20 000 ha) and less so by smaller fires.”

The authors cite research showing fires in western Canada are getting bigger.

“Areas of the most westerly provinces (British Columbia and Alberta) that intersect the Montane Cordillera, Boreal Cordillera and Boreal Plains ecozones receive full suppression across most of their landmass,” the study notes. “The rise in the largest sized fires is in line with global trends that extreme wildfires are increasing in frequency.”

Overall, the 45-year period between 1959 and 2024 shows lightning strikes cause about 55% of wildfires, while humans have caused roughly the remaining 45%.

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The number of large fires (bigger than 200 hectares) caused by lightning strikes has increased by an average of three fires per year.

Overall, the number of human-caused fires has decreased over 45 years, which the study attributes to effective fire prevention education. However, the trend over the shorter term has been an upswing in human-caused fires, which the study attributes to the impact of climate change.

“The occurrence and AAB by human-caused fires has increased in the country in the last two decades, likely due to the fire weather becoming hotter, and drier due to climate change,” the study says.

David Gambrill

David has twice served as Canadian Underwriter’s senior editor, both from 2005 to 2012, and again from 2017 to the present.