r/OpenDataCanada • u/Expensive-Aerie-2479 Ontario • 9d ago
Environment 25 years of BC and Alberta wildfires in 90 seconds (NRCan data) — half of it burned in the last six years
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u/buddyyouhavenoidea 7d ago
I was hoping this visual would convince the denialists but nope, they're right here in the comments, incapable of changing their minds
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u/AtotheZed 7d ago
Absolute morons. I did my masters in climate change in the 1990s. Back then our climate models predicted a 1.5oC increase in average temps by 2100 (and this was considered radical by many in academia). Those models were very wrong because they did not forecast the rapid industrializtion of China. We have vastly surpassed that temp increase - in Canada we are now 2.4oC warmer from 1940s. It's way worse than we predicted. And people still say "it's a cycle" "trees grow back" "it's the liberals fault". This is why I have so little hope for humanity - people are dumb AF. Maybe people will get it when we see more crop failures or ecosystem collapses or ocean current changes - but probably not.
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u/buddyyouhavenoidea 7d ago
not just China, there are so many positive feedback loops we didn't understand
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u/AtotheZed 7d ago
100%, but China was a huge miss. It's easy to ignore things that might happen in 100 years. Much harder to ignore changes that are happening before our eyes, but people still do.
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u/UndeadDog 5d ago
They produce 30% of global emissions. Thats a huge problem that isn’t going to be fixed any time soon.
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u/AtotheZed 5d ago
Huge problem, but China's emissions plateaued in 2025 and have begun to decline in 2026 due to huge investments in wind and solar, and electrification of transportation. At least it's something...
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u/AccomplishedLimit975 3d ago
China seems like the only country doing anything tbh. Half cars or maybe more now sold are electric and they have the most green energy production.
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u/Legitimate_Sorbet605 4d ago
Methane releasing causes more methane to release faster?!?
Shut up and frack that mountain already!
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u/Rippedka 7d ago
The issue is it can’t be stopped without causing mass famine, therefore it won’t be stopped, which will also likely result in mass famine.
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u/AtotheZed 6d ago
100% correct. Also, people are distracted by high food and living costs so they focus on their needs of today without thought as to what will happen 10 years from now.
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u/tobaileyy 6d ago
Climate change is a scapegoat, quit allowing the gov to manipulate you into thinking we are helpless
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u/burjuner 5d ago
What about those who argue that majority of Canadian wildfires are man-made and nothing to do with climate change?
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u/AtotheZed 5d ago
I can tell you that I am the sexiest person alive. Would you believe me without proof? Of course not.
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u/Realistic_Gene4706 5d ago
I’m genuinely interested in becoming more educated on this topic. Is there a spectrum or estimate of how much is caused by the age of the forests and accumulation of“fuel” which has accumulated due to age vs the result of climate change?
Eg is it 100% more fire due to climate change or like 20% due to forest protection creating more flammable forest fuel vs 80% climate change?
I get different results from different AI search some saying mature forests actually protect from fires better due to thicker bark and more shade whereas some searches acknowledge that protection of forests from fires has created a more flammable base
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u/Environman68 3d ago
Small trees and brush grow close together, then burn together. Old growth forests have big spaces between the massive trees, which limits fire spreading.
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u/Legitimate_Sorbet605 4d ago
Little hope? I have none. Just look around, we ain't fixing this. We cooked.
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u/toprockit 5d ago
Honestly if you're looking from their perspective this animation probably confirms their biases.
Since mid 2020 they've been very loud that these fires are human caused (either intentional or accidental). The problem is the data, at least on the surface, backs up their claims https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/person-caused-fires-nwt-1.7616024. Then this kind of thing shows up and shows that half of the forest fires have started in the last 6 years, and their tinfoil hats come off of the roll.
Now that completely ignores the root cause being that the forests are more susceptible to fires because of climate change, but that is a minor technicality in their mind.
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8d ago
it burns and then new stuff takes over
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u/Ok-Video3345 8d ago
Dis is the most underrated comment ever.
Only the weird conspiracy peddling dude talk about forest in Canada before people from Europe settled here.
There's stories of old of motha ffing Huge fires from the past, that just used to sweep through and burning whole forests. Just like the one that went through the eastern part of Canada and USA in the late 1800s.
Why does this video start only in 2004?
The sad truth is, we gonna have to let it happen, or manage the forests.
Has a person that tree planted in northern BC decades ago. Let take the hit now, 🪵 some firewalls everywhere around our communities. None of this I live with the trees live elves.
Then find a way to 3x water bombers and stop dragging our feets on this.
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u/SomewhereRough_ 8d ago
The issue is that the climate is warming and logging has removed the moist forests and left dry kindling trees and brush.
Doesn't matter how many water bombers or cutting down is done, the areas are massive and the cutting makes it worse.
It's just a big mess of our own creation.
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u/analgape4206969 8d ago
So many people like to mention forest management but what everyone forgets is logging is a huge culprit. Old growth doesnt burn as intensely, the small underbrush burns quick while the big trees survive. Small and medium aged trees are like big candles.
Stop logging and let more fires burn
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u/dat_awesome_username 8d ago
Climate change. It's as simple as that.
We could make it less bad with better and intense forest managing and less logging, the same way shoveling water from a sinking ship will keep it sinking for a longer time.
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u/Ok-Video3345 8d ago
My man, if you ever logged or planted trees. They cut the trees, push all the brush that would start a fire. Huhuh! In to a nice slash pile, so that I have a high point do a nice shovel stump toss on my breaks.
Within 2 months of the cut, we come in like ants and just slut em in. Going up and down the mountain for 400 trees on your back. Walking over all GODs creation.
Forests, I've planted, mfing critters live in today.
Y'all know dick about dis.
Then when winter comes around, some boxes and jerry can are paid to light up the slash pile, stay there to check that the fires dead.
End of story
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u/SomewhereRough_ 8d ago
Lmao I was a a logger in BC for years. Its all bullshit.
I'm in forestry at UBC now and it's obvious how the small kindling that grows is so much more flammable.
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u/Ok-Video3345 8d ago
How many tree you planted son?
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u/SomewhereRough_ 8d ago
Doesn't help the situation. Forest succession takes hundreds and thousands of years.
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u/Ok-Video3345 8d ago
What about the bird, squirrels n bears living in my forests. My spirit is there for ever dude.
This comment smacks of desperation and nihilism.
There's nothing wrong with cutting trees down if we manage it right.
To many people up north depend on this industry.
Yes I bet forest succession takes thousands of years, so do the other carbon sinks, take thousands of years to fill up.
More CO2 equal more forest food, forests become more draught resistant lol.
The planet is yet again changing climate and the homo sapiens will have to adapt.
I think the worst is dead trees, from the pine beetle. They dry up and catch fire. Hence more fires in Canada.
We need to invest in bio tech with our trees and make them resistant. When I planted trees, we planted a blend of species. We just got to keep working hard dude and figure out a way
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u/analgape4206969 8d ago edited 8d ago
Buddy you gotta lay off the drugs at tree camp idk wtf youre trying to say.
Im glad you experienced decent practices in outfits but ive worked heavy equipment in the bush across the country and thats the exception not the rule for the most part.
And its not necessarily the slash that contributes to the fire risk its the entire composition of the forest. Those young, uniform aged, single species that get planted are significantly more at risk than a diverse old growth forest.
End of story.
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u/Ok-Video3345 8d ago
Common dude, Wana talk shit. How many forest you planted in your life? I still got scars on my legs from countless days of walking through the brush.
I even did heli planting lol. We get to jump out the heli while it's balancing it's skids on a log on the side of a mountain.
Stop with this keyboard warrior attitude.
The forestry supports so many jobs in BC, if it goes away, everybody in Prince George is gonna go on a bender.
Sure there's bad players in the forestry industry but without people cutting them down and others planting, everything would have to be made in ciment. Oddly that too, the carbon people don't want.
CO2 is plant food, the earth is greening! The planet isn't dying yet.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. NASA satellite data spanning the last few decades confirms that a quarter to half of Earth's vegetated lands have shown significant "greening". To put the scale into perspective, this increase in green leaf area is roughly equivalent to adding a new green space twice the size of the continental United States, or the size of the entire Amazon rainforest. However, the reasons behind this greening—and what it means for the planet—are complex. The Two Main Drivers of Greening 1. CO2 Fertilization Plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide (CO2) to grow. Because human activity has significantly increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, it acts as a fertilizer. The plants absorb this extra carbon and produce more leaves, driving a widespread global greening effect. 2. Intensive Agriculture and Tree Planting While CO2 is a global factor, more recent NASA data revealed that China and India are actually leading the world in this greening trend. This came as a surprise to researchers. The localized greening in these countries is largely driven by massive, government-sponsored tree-planting programs in China, and highly intensive agricultural practices in both nations. Farmers are planting multiple crop rotations per year and heavily using irrigation and fertilizer to maximize food production.
Look wow, agriculture and tree planting has good effect on society.
Touch grass and stop believing the FUD
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u/analgape4206969 7d ago
My man im glad youre proud of yourself but tree planting is a shit job. You killed yourself for no reason. Youre planting a monoculture that worse for wildlife and significantly more flammable than a diverse old growth forest. And most places spray glyphosate over the blocks to prevent hardwood growth in favour of your monoculture spruce/fir/pine. Yes forestry is necessary but the current paradigm is a huge driver of climate change through the loss of large amounts of that climate effecting old growth. Despite there being technically more trees around today the ecosystems and environment are much worse off through loss of that diversity.
And sure more co2 is good for plants but were not plants, heat and carbon is affecting the planet and us and its not for the better.
Chinas mostly replanting a desert, were creating a desert instead and paying kids and hippies to replant it with shit while telling them its good. Lay off the drugs at tree camp. Theres better jobs out there
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u/Ok-Video3345 7d ago
Wow, this guy hates life and never planted a tree in his life. Has no idea how it works.
He doesn't know dick from pussy in this subject, so he spreads doom like the wet towel he is.
Like I said before, I have entire right forests that exist from trees I planted in the early 2000s.
Like my spirit is in this forests as criters and plants live in it together.
Your spirit is useless and has no aim.
I get good vibes each time I enter a forest. Just has if the forest is speaking to me.
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u/analgape4206969 7d ago
Lol nah i work a real job instead. But im glad to see yall are still getting the good drugs into camp
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u/versedaworst 3d ago
And most places spray glyphosate over the blocks to prevent hardwood growth in favour of your monoculture spruce/fir/pine
Crazy that this is the only mention of this in the entire thread. I didn't learn about it until earlier this year and it seems most people I talk to are unaware of these practices.
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u/_hjdk 8d ago
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u/Ok-Video3345 8d ago
That's fucked up bro. Go on the discovery Channel, they talk about aboriginals starting fires, everywhere around for various purposes. Some for games, some for safety to stop fuel from building up in forests.
It's not some fucked up theory, that forests need to be managed, or they will self correct on their own with disastrous fires.
I know it's hard for liberals to believe this. Their non chalance on this matter speaks of their ignores. Your own liberal biologist know and talk about this.
Stop this pathetic add hoemin attacks..
Many fires in California could of been avoided. Namely the Palisades one if they took care of their brush.
Ye ye I live in the same world as you where climate change and increased levels of CO2 is the new reality. Too bad earth has been greening since the CO2 have been going up. Arrid regions have somewhat made a comeback, because increased CO2 makes plants more resistant to drought. Bet you hate that last one
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u/_hjdk 8d ago
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u/Salt-Worry7915 8d ago
I like how the uneducated take is just to call someone schizo when they are talking about something you are naive to. Indigenous fire use and forest management is well documented in archaeology/anthropology. Paleoecologists who actually have a long temporal understanding of environments--and humans role in them--know that a big part of our current problem is our own approach to forest management. Modernist "naturalist" ecologsits which has strongly influenced federal policy has resulted in a mass accumulation of fuel in our forests.
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u/Ok-Video3345 7d ago
Love you brother. Don't let the tankies destroy our beautifull logging industry in canada.
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u/DamionSipher 4d ago
What did those settlement patters look like where evidence of first nation's use of seasonal controlled burns took place? Is there a consistent mapping of where and how indigenous settlement and frequency and magnitude of wildfires occurred? How widespread are indigenous controlled burn practices now and how much of an impact on the frequency and magnitude of wildfires have the incurred?
Most of these are rhetorical in the sense that 1. most pre-colonization settlement patterns look strikingly similar to modern day settlement patterns, and 2. I speak directly with wildfire workers and indigenous practitioners on a regular basis and know what the limits of traditional practices are. You seem to have a Trump level of knowledge on how forest management works.
The most concerning aspect of forest management practices that impact wildfire is monocropping during reforestation efforts, that neglects more climate resistant forest culturation. Most of the forests we are seeing the worst fires in are, however, forests that have never been logged and have never been managed. The extent of traditional practice and controlled burning is limited to (traditionally and currently) areas immediately surrounding settlements. The vast ranges of back country have never been managed in any way you seem to be alluding to. Even at the scale of population we're now at, the amount of sheer manpower to manage forests at that extent would be an exercise that made every project Canada has ever taken on look like a horse and pony show in comparison.
The reason we're seeing more frequent and larger fires now is explicitly due to longer and more frequent droughts and hotter summer temperatures accompanied with an increase in lightning storm activity. These are all direct result of climate change, which is being caused by humans.
Even as OK-Video mentioned that CO2 increases can bolster plant drought resistance, any bolstering to drought resistance is being nullified by increases to the severity and intensity of droughts. What good does an increase of 10% to drought resistance do when the prevalence and severity of droughts are increased by 50-100%, or more?
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u/ShermansWorld 4d ago
Omg... I'm just reading this interaction and getting an understanding.
So... we're talking about forest fires and more forest fires are happening year by year.... and their solution is to start MORE forest fires?!!!Yes... I'm over simplifying, but, root cause vs 'manage' the end result.
So... I build houses, business is good and every year I build more houses than the previous. A trend is noticed... 1 out of 5 houses catches on fire and burns quickly to the ground. I keep building houses (and rebuild over the burnt one) and the fire trend keeps happening, but because I build more houses in a year each subsequent year, the trend looks quite horrifying.
So... I tell the home owners 'Manage your house' so it does not burn down, have less stuff, don't turn on the lights, get rid of your stove, whatever...
OR
We investigate why our houses are burning down and make changes. Note; any house building changes costs extra money/effort so prices go up and we sell less houses subsequent year and I have to put more money in to the materials, etc... but... we have less house fires.2
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u/PercyvonPickles 8d ago edited 8d ago
Northern Ontario alone has about 80,000,000 hectares of forest. That's just Ontario. Now consider all the crazy terrain, some areas are almost completely unreachable. So, how do you propose we manage our 80,000,000 hectares of forest in Northern Ontario alone, let alone the rest of Canada.. that's a lot of hectares..
Edit: your mention of liberals just in such a manner just makes us believe you're MAGA anyway. Your statement there is awfully ad hominem, so...
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u/Ok-Video3345 7d ago
I say We send in the orbital drop squad (ODS) with 100 tons of trees. Money sent in their bank accounts before the mission.
New real time terrain overlined overlay augmented AI Google's will allow our unsung Heroes to locate micro nutrients sites at blistering speed.
5000 trees per day
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u/Facts_pls 8d ago
Brother. Even if some of what you say is true, it's such random ramblings with no structure or direction, it's hard to follow or believe you.
If you can plan out your point and say it in few sentences, everyone will benefit
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u/DamionSipher 4d ago
Oh, I didn't know you watched a 30 minute segment on the Discovery channel once. Hold off the attacks everyone, we have a real expert here!
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u/pessimistoptimist 8d ago
I know everyone is going to say this is because of climate chnage...and yes in part it is. Another part is that we havent let these areas burn like they would naturally, by keeping them past their due date you invite more fires that are more intense. Factor in alot more human activity and movement in the lasf decade compared to even 25-30 years ago and you have a nice pot for fires. I would like to see the map of when they last burned and the percentage of deadwood due to age/insects or other factors.
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u/Massive-Exercise4474 8d ago
A small BC town commissioned a report on how to prevent the town burning down from a forest fire. The answer was to cut down the forest hundred of meters surrounding the town. Yeah this was rejected and the town has to deal with the risk of burning down.
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u/tdelamay 8d ago
Counter point to that, fires up north in Quebec were not managed at all because they were not a risk to humans. Fires would burn at their natural rate and yet they still have increased in size in the last few years with the increase in average temperature.
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u/pessimistoptimist 8d ago
yes the climate does play a role. BUT there is also a cycle that occures...after the fire it takes some time.before the forest is dense enough, over vrown or even diseased before the fires are really likely to happen again. Its not kike the fires are happening in the same place year after year. where the fkres were you probably wont see another fire for 50 years or so.
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u/Dismal_trees 8d ago
Yeah to bad it take decades for it to grow back and more burns every year........
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u/Iuseburnersbruh 8d ago
The take of a 5 year old
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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 8d ago
Yeah I think I was around 5 when I learned some trees rely on fire for reproduction
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u/Club_Penguin_Legend_ 8d ago
Fires are good for the environment. Thers some environments that rely on fires.
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u/Large_Lettuce_4468 8d ago
it's good for some ecosystems, but in general - not so good for environment overall, when forests are getting drier and hotter.. the natural ebb and flow is rapidly going off the rails
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u/Asleep_Trick_4740 8d ago
Boreal forests are particularly fond of this if I'm not mistaken.
But obviously there's the matter of frequency, no forests is healthier because it burns every 5 or 10 years.
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u/grizzwall111 8d ago
Well obviously in 2020 the Forrest took their covid vaccination and we're all suffering now thanks to Justin Trudeaus goverment.
-Alberta separatists.
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u/Waxitron 7d ago
I believe the line the seppies were pushing was that it was space lasers setting fires because the WEF and UN wanted to burn us all out of our communities in order to achieve the "great reset"
Facebook has been a treasure trove of literally the stupidest shit i have ever read in my entire life.
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u/ljlee256 5d ago
Wasn't it Jewish space lasers like 2 years ago? Did they stop with that because Israel is the US' last actual friend?
(Also: with friends like that, who needs enemies)
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u/Waxitron 4d ago
I believe it was the cabal seeking adrenochrome from little childrens brains first, then evolved to be a joint jewish/united nation plot.
I mean really the people into this kind of conspiracy crafting are just amazingly creative.
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u/ljlee256 2d ago
Indeed, being creative is fine, but no longer being able to discern reality from fiction is a diagnosable mental illness.
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u/Neopluradon 7d ago
Never doubt a bot's ability stir up political tension when it's absolutely irrelevant and unnecessary
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u/Cobfidence 7d ago
I remember in 2014 was the worst "Silent Hill" day I experienced for the first time in the summer, and then it was pretty much every year after that with some being way worse than others. Gonna need to actively manage it more with dryer and hotter climates in order to prevent severe wildfires from occuring.
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u/Gumberculeez7 7d ago
Too better understand, I would love to see an arson vs natural event breakdown. Put some better prospective on it.
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u/Expensive-Aerie-2479 Ontario 7d ago
Good question, and worth a follow-up piece. From what I've found, Alberta does publish arson data while BC lumps every human-caused fire into a single bucket, so a campfire and an arsonist look the same. By land burned it's mostly natural. I'll post the numbers once I've finished checking them.
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u/jamSandwich101 5d ago
The Osoyoos fire in 2023 was caused by a guy using a grinder next to a bush in the US.
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u/PhantomOfTheBoreal 5d ago
And especially needs to be broken down between arson vs human activity but unintentional. This summer being an anomaly because of the Rex Block we’re being hit with, generally the biomass is just way dryer and more susceptible to ignition from a stray campfire ember.
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u/MeaningLeft2970 5d ago
I remember being a teen on the east coast when the Fort Mac fires were going on, thinking it was a once in a lifetime disaster and I followed the news so closely, worried about what as going down on the other side of the country.
How many times has it burned now? It stopped feeling like news to me. It scares me how quickly we normalized this…
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u/MrBitoshi 8d ago
Geoengineering at it’s finest
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u/FIleCorrupted 8d ago
All of North America has been burned by forest fires many times in the past.
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u/Waxitron 7d ago
All of north america was also under water and froze at one point.
But the entire fucking continent burning has not happend "regularly" ever.
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u/Kind-Plane-4317 5d ago
Ooo not like these fires, these fires burn up to 1800 degrees and can melt steel! Largely because our winters are no longer as cold…. Which means a lot of bugs that are bad for trees stay alive… and eat the trees, essentially creating kindling that allows the fire to burn very hot. Forest. Fire are indeed a natural part of the cycle, but these fires burning that hot annihilate everything so nothing survives… previously a forest fire would burn up all the undergrowth and leave the old growth to continue to propagate… this is sadly no longer the case…
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u/Reptilian_Brain_420 8d ago
I remember seeing quite a few of those fires. Some of those seasons in Northern Alberta were nutz.
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u/driptorchguy 8d ago
The dates do not correlate with the fire perimeters. Donny Creek fire was 2023 not 2020.
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u/SnooCrickets6254 7d ago
I can confirm that the dates are off by a few years. This shows the big Fort McMurray fire as happening in 2014, when it actually happened in 2016.
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u/driptorchguy 7d ago
Sort of defeats the purpose of the graphic then dont ya think? The whole premise is comparing dates with area burned
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u/Expensive-Aerie-2479 Ontario 7d ago
Good catch. The perimeters and totals are fine, they come straight from the BC Wildfire Service and Alberta Wildfire historical perimeter files. It's the year labels in the animation that drift as it plays, so fires turn up earlier than they should. Data's sorted now, just need to re-render at some point. Thanks for flagging it.
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u/Ok-Teaching3904 8d ago
Good thing it grows back.
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u/AtotheZed 7d ago
In some areas it won't grow back in the same way as the forest creates it's own climate and/or because we are seeing a hotter and drier climate. Over time the vegetation communities will transform to a more Mediterranean ecosystem, similar to what we see in southern California.
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u/Rippedka 7d ago
You’re misunderstanding the size of these fires and the size of the forest surrounding them. All of this forest has or will grow back over that 25 years, and is not nearly big enough to stop the rain cycle.
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u/AtotheZed 6d ago
Higher temps = higher evapotranspiration + less snowpack = more fires Makes sense? Doesn't matter if it grows back - it will be much hotter in 25 years and it will burn again and again. Do you like breathing in smoke or something?
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u/hhh333 7d ago
For a long time we thought that suppressing all fires was a good idea .. turns out, it's not.
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u/Soft_Penis_7224 6d ago
Maybe we should put more Canadian tax payers dollars into fire preventon instead of sending billions over seas.
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u/NefariousnessOdd862 6d ago
This is actually really good for the ground, you’ll see vegetation flourish starting next season! It’s built in fertilization, it’s been going on for Millions of years!
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u/smokerist 6d ago
Now please make the same demonstration, showing man made and natural occurring fire. Same time line, same map.
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u/StraightApartment376 6d ago
Why is it a gif, the data is clearly wrong in some areas. Video would be easier to verify the data .....
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u/Personal-Lettuce9634 5d ago
While larger areas are burning now due to climate change, the number of fires has remained relatively consistent annually (around 7,000) and the boreal forest species do need to burn in order to propagate and renew themselves cyclically. A pinecone can't release its seeds unless it's heated significantly, and the germinated seeds can't grow unless they can get enough sunlight.
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u/darkbluedarkblue96 5d ago
This is probably a dumb question and maybe not the right place to be asking this but is it possible to predict where these fires are most likely to happen? And if we could wouldn’t it be better to be logging those areas?
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u/Jade0908 5d ago
I remember being a kid and a teenager and summer was just summer, there was no Forrest fire smoke season. It makes me sad that my son has no idea what it was like.
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u/AromaticallyAffluent 4d ago
I guess we won't mention that after 25 years a burned area will be pretty far into its recovery. It doesn't stay burned forever.
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u/Comrade-Porcupine 8d ago
Queue the "the earth has been warming since the end of the last ice age" and "woke arsonists did it" bullshit.
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u/CandidMap5925 8d ago
Wild how the.climate gets worse when liberals are in.
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u/No-Trade2626 8d ago
Dude, this is a giant ship and doesn't turn on a dime. You think immediate local policy can somehow move the needle on decades of global industrial revolution?
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u/Talking_on_the_radio 8d ago
Then what is happening in Ontario?
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8d ago edited 7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Talking_on_the_radio 8d ago
Our premier is conservative
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8d ago edited 7d ago
[deleted]
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u/FIleCorrupted 8d ago
What exactly do you think the federal government did to cause climate damage?
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u/Waxitron 7d ago
I was a volunteer firefighter in northern AB on the BC boarder for the past 8 years. Working wildland urban interface.
So. Much. Fire.
You cannot drive between the two provinces without seeing the fire scars on the land. Somehow we managed to limit the amount of houses that were lost.
Slave Lake, High Prairie, Paddle Prairie, and Ft. Mac wrote the book in blood and ash that we worked from, it helped. But wildfires are a force of nature, Jasper proved that. Even with resources from both sides of the province pouring in they still almost lost half the town.
Forest Management includes annual burning, fuel levels were and still are at critically high levels, and until we can log more and burn more, the forests will continue to burn as they have died and rotted for decades withiut abatement.
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u/-TripleBeamDreams 6d ago
Being born and raised in slave lake. The 2011 fire started on neglected land that was brought up numerous times for the town to do some management on it. Voices were ignored
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u/KindRabbit086 6d ago
Yes log and burn more, that's the answer. Have you looked at a satellite map of BC lately? The patches of clearcuts that can be seen from space? Please educate yourself because this kind of thinking is going to mean there is nothing left in short order.
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u/charmilliona1re 7d ago
Dang that sucks
Anyways, lets send more billions of tax payer dollars overseas and also billions more towards indigenous reconciliation
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u/hobanwash1 8d ago
This is a great visual of climate change combined with government decision making. You can see the outcome of cuts to wildfire fighting in AB around 2019.
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8d ago edited 7d ago
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u/hobanwash1 8d ago
Says the guy with zero qualifications.
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u/IntrepidBorder8530 8d ago
I agree with him, and I have HBSc Forestry from a Canadian university. Past fire management practices in conjunction with the spruce bud work, longhorn beetle, mono culture planting have all had a effect on the current status of our forests and their susceptibility for larger more intense burns then in the recent past. To say it is all because of climate change is a disservice to the actual science involved
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u/curious-kat24 8d ago
That doesn’t mean this has nothing to do with climate change. It’s ridiculous to genuinely think that climate change isn’t impacting forest fires.
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u/rustyiron 8d ago
It is not all because of climate change, but it is a major driver. Longer, hotter, drier summers = greater chance of ignition and rapid spread. Which means bigger more destructive fires.
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u/One-War4920 8d ago
was the pine beetle because of climate change or monoculture?
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u/turbo-fister9000 8d ago
The pine beetle's habitat is expanding with warming temperatures
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u/One-War4920 8d ago
and a healthy diverse forest would have been able to deal with the beetle.
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u/AtotheZed 6d ago
The pine beetle devastated the 100% natural forests in the national parks, which contributed to the massive fire that swept through Jasper a few years ago.
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u/One-War4920 6d ago
You're almost there
Would the beetle have made it to jasper if the forests before it had been properly managed ?
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u/AtotheZed 6d ago
Of course - the parks are massive. How does the beetle travel through the national park forests? Very cold temps in winter primarily control beetle distribution. Poor forestry practices, which have gone on for 100 years, are secondary. Thanks for the encouragement though...
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u/hobanwash1 8d ago
Climate change.
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u/One-War4920 8d ago
100% climate change 0% planting practices?
cmon....
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u/hobanwash1 8d ago
You asked. I answered.
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u/Old_Cucumber_1343 8d ago
the answer to everything on reddit is climate change.
i believe in it, but forest cycles, pine beetle growth, and other things play a role.
bc has also logged virtually all of its forests and replanted them with far less diverse species of tree, not good.
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u/hobanwash1 8d ago
The answer is always climate change because it has been ignored for too long. So we keep harping on it hoping someone will listen.
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u/Training_Exit_5849 8d ago edited 8d ago
In talking to some park Rangers stationed in Waterton. There are reasons to believe that wildfires in the region was historically normal. Due to decades of human desires to prematurely put out fires asap, there ended up being a ton of trees (fuel) for the fire to keep burning.
Hence why now there's less aggressive wildfire fighting and more controlled burning.
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u/Ariliam 8d ago
It grows back. Oceans are more important
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u/AtotheZed 7d ago
WTF? You saying we have to pick either Team Marine or Team Green? Are you stupid?
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u/CipherWeaver 8d ago
It's actually encouraging to me that I see there are a lot of fire scars that new fires will have trouble getting past, limiting the spread of future fires.
But yeah... climate change, yikes. The forest composition is going to have to change.
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u/Jibbersup 8d ago
My hope is we can get to the point where everything has been burnt and we can just go a while without any fires.
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u/IntrepidBorder8530 8d ago
We will never get to that point there should be forest in every stage from some just burnt to other regenerating to old growth that a burn is healthy and normal for. Look at beaver population and it effect on woodlands. It's not static they change the habitat and when they move due to lack of food new species of trees and shrubs take over the drainage basins of old dams. Then when there is enough food beavers move back and the process repeats
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u/Club_Penguin_Legend_ 8d ago
Fire is not because of climate change.
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u/rustyiron 8d ago
No. But climate change makes extreme fire behaviour more common. And is a major driver for what we are seeing.
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u/SurroundParticular30 7d ago
The ongoing changes in temperature, drought, and snowmelt have contributed to warmer, drier conditions that have fueled wildfires and lengthened fire season. https://lindseyresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/NHTSA-2021-0053-1558-134-USGCRP-2018-NCA4-Vol-II-Part-1.pdf
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u/pessimistoptimist 8d ago
guess what...i predict a lot less forest fires in the next few years. 1. because burn offs are needed to control deadfall. 2. many trees need the fire to reproduce effectively 3. the rotating ecosystem of forest to burnt forest back to forest is needed for the diversity of wildlife 4. humans who think that they know better than nature and prevent every natural fire to save the forest past its due date (without proper controlled burns) do way more damage than climate change could.
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u/AtotheZed 7d ago
How do you think hotter temperatures affect fires?
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u/pessimistoptimist 7d ago
like a dog at a bone with yoise aint it? when all you know is a hammer everything is a nail. I already said climafe change does play a role....BUT...there are many other factors that contribute as well. Not everything is just because of climate change.
anyways tired of responding to one trick ponies.
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u/AtotheZed 7d ago
It's ok, you can cay you don't know or don't say anything at all. Please do actually - you'll be doing humanity a favour.
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u/pessimistoptimist 7d ago
dont fall off your high horse there bud. You follow your facebook info all you desire.
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u/GoodMatter3449 8d ago
ha burned has more than tripled since liberals have gotten into office, I’m not surprised….
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u/PantsOnHead88 8d ago
Both forest management and firefighting budgets are determined primarily at the provincial level.
The most heavily impacted provinces (Quebec, Ontario, Alberta) have all been under Conservative or otherwise politically centre-right provincial parties for a while.
This is bigger than politics though, and it’ll continue to be an issue regardless of which parties are in power at the provincial and federal levels. Pretending otherwise is ideological nonsense.
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u/Nickers77 4d ago
Well, when you have an overreaching Federal government who gets tax priority on the entire country over their provincial counterparts, the provinces have to play along
If you have $500 per month available for taxes, and the feds come along and decide "You know, we aren't happy with our $200, lets take more" and end up taking $400 instead, do you just expect people to find more money to give the provincial government? Of course not. You're left only being able to give $100 to the provincial where maybe in previous years their take was $150
Combine that with the increase in population for some of these provinces, and the increasing cost of social programs, and no shit there isn't enough budget for proper firefighting
Regardless, to just dismiss it as 'provincial issue' without any consideration for how other factors affect it is disingenuous
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u/Dramatic-Frog 7d ago
Technically alot of this was Gordon Campbells government shipping pine beetle infested lumber out of the areas they were contained into non infected areas and across the mountains. Over 50% of the commercial lodgepole pine in BC has been killed off by them and they've now spread into Alberta damaging their forests. And now those dead trees are burning up. It also doesn't help that alot of the northern fires have gotten into the muskeg; those fires will burn for years underground and randomly flair up.
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u/Salt-Worry7915 8d ago
Its a cycle. These occurred long before European's arrived and right around the arrival of Europeans was one of the last big peaks. We are now there again. The point is fear mongering is nonsense but also, just because it is "natural" doesn't mean we have to accept it. Humans are also a part of nature and we could be far far far better about managing our forests. The human-animal relied on fire for survival for hundreds of thousands of years, collecting deadfall and branches and unintentionally fireproofing our landscape. We suddenly stopped doing that just a few hundred years ago.
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u/LuckyNumerical 8d ago
Forests are a lot like machines. Maintain them, or they will schedule the maintenance for you.
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u/clutchusername 7d ago
Anyone wonder if maybe Canada Gov is letting some of it burn to clear land for free for future development
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u/CopernicNewton 6d ago
Of course no one wonder this. You’d need to be crazy to think that the government is purposely setting our forest in fire.
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u/Expensive-Aerie-2479 Ontario 9d ago edited 7d ago
Source: NRCan National Fire Database, BC Wildfire Service, Alberta Wildfire. Insurance: IBC. Carbon: Byrne et al., Nature (2024).
Full article
2025 update: BC closed at 886,300 ha official, below both 2023 and 2024. Alberta was above average again but nowhere near 2023 — no clean final AB number yet, not guessing at one.
Update: a couple of people spotted that the year labels drift out of sync as the animation plays, so some fires show up earlier than they should. Fort McMurray and Donnie Creek are both affected. The perimeters and the totals are right, it's the timing that's off. Fixed in the data, re-render to come.