Posted on 07/18/2026 9:53:03 AM PDT by jerod
Firefighting efforts can help protect communities but can't tackle Canada's vast fire landscape
It's another smoky summer in southern Ontario, and people breathing poor air in and around Toronto are once again asking what governments can do about wildfire smoke.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has defended the province's wildfire budget and has asked Ottawa for extra help. Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have also demanded Canada do more to stop smoke from drifting across the border.
But experts say the politics can obscure a harder reality: fire is a natural part of Canada's forests, and a warming climate is making those fires more intense, harder to fight and more likely to send smoke into major cities.
"A lot of this is not entirely unexpected. [But] it's happening far sooner than a lot of people expected," said Patrick James, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's forestry department.
"What we're seeing is very modest increases in temperature can result in multiplicative effects in terms of the number of fires and the intensity of those fires."
Behind the smoky skies that have turned parts of southern Ontario orange is a climate system behaving in increasingly unpredictable ways. Hotter temperatures and drought conditions dry out forests faster, while weather patterns can carry smoke hundreds or thousands of kilometres into cities.
Smoke from wildfires can reach cities such as Toronto through natural wind patterns. This time, an unusually strong El Niño weather pattern likely helped push smoke toward southern cities. The heat dome that brought record-breaking temperatures earlier in July may also have trapped smoke and made it linger longer.
"Because of global climate change and the warming of the planet, we're drying out vegetation much more than we did in the past, and that makes it more susceptible to fire," said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist and dean at the University of Michigan.
Canada is warming much faster than the global average. The country is warming at twice the global rate, while the Canadian Arctic is warming at nearly four times the global rate, raising concerns around thawing permafrost in northern regions.
That could expose carbon-rich soils, which may release carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere — greenhouse gases that would speed planetary warming.
"It's already started, and it could get worse and worse. And there's a huge amount of carbon locked up in the permafrost and also in the shallow seas in the Arctic Ocean," Overpeck said.
There is still scientific uncertainty around exactly how much warming is required before Arctic permafrost begins thawing more widely, but research indicates the process has already begun.
What can governments do?
Experts agree that more firefighting resources are important.
"Right now we have fires burning in Nova Scotia, we have fires burning in coastal British Columbia, and we have fires burning in the far north," said Ze'ev Gedalof, an associate professor and climate scientist at the University of Guelph.
"So we can't move resources around. We used to just move planes and helicopters and people around as the wildfire season shifted across the country."
That has led to calls for a more permanent national firefighting force to deal with longer and more widespread fire seasons in Canada.
But while firefighting resources are important for protecting local communities — some of which have been completely destroyed in Ontario fires this year — experts say it is not possible to extinguish every fire sending smoke toward major cities.
In a detailed online post, acclaimed U.S. climate scientist Zeke Hausfather wrote that fires in Canada's boreal often burn as intense crown fires, where flames reach the treetops, in remote areas far from human management. Many are too remote and intense to douse.
"[I]t's a landscape that waits, and then burns catastrophically under extreme weather," Hausfather wrote.
That has not stopped a group of Republican lawmakers from Michigan from demanding that Canada do more to tackle the smoke — a step some of them took last year. A Republican U.S. senator from Ohio has said he plans to introduce a bill to sanction Canadian officials deemed responsible for failing to address the smoke.
None of those lawmakers mentioned climate change or the burning of fossil fuels. A landmark 2023 study directly linked increasing wildfires in western U.S. and southwestern Canadian forests to a group of the world's 88 largest fossil fuel companies, including several American oil majors.
"When people talk about a perfect storm for something bad, that's what we're dealing with," Overpeck said.
"And the best way to solve it is to just stop burning fossil fuels."
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These people are completely laughable... 'just stop burning fossil fuels ???'... Yup... We'll get right on that. I often wonder... What colour is the sky in their world? Because they're living in a different world than the rest of us.
You want to stop 'wild fires'?
Then start prosecuting the people who keep starting them and insure that they serve very long prison sentences as a deterrent to others who are doing or thinking of doing the same stupid thing every year.
Forest fires have been here for millions of years... We only started fighting them in the 20th century... Before that we just ran away from them. But the vast majority are manmade... Spontaneous combustion is almost completely mythical, and while there is the occasional fire started by lighting... That is a very rare event.
Most are started by humans lighting fires... Start finding them, charging them and then prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law... And make those laws more harsh and punishing for those found guilty. That may go a long way to avoid having 850 active fires burning in Canada.
ugh what a load of BS.
I don't know what the color of the sky is in their world, but in Buffalo, it is orangish yellow...
Canada should ban electricity. It is the only way. /s
“Scientists.”
Like the ones who can’t determine the definition of a woman?
When Overpeck goes and lives naked in the wilderness in order to set an example, I will take him seriously.
How much CO2 has been released due to the fires?
Are you sure? This article refers to “scientists” AND “experts.” In my experience, scientists’ and experts’ opinions should always be followed. Me, my college gave a BS for Political Science degrees. So I’m already a scientist. If I can also become an expert in something, I think there’ll be a lot of money in it for me
Exactly.
Big time.
Concur with your comment.
Apparently so.
“Because of global climate change and the warming of the planet, we’re drying out vegetation...”
These Climate ‘scientists’ are so full of excrement; maybe we could grind them up & sell them for fertilizer.
I can run out and check if you want. We’ve had some rain here this morning.
Some Republicans are demanding that Canada do more to prevent smoke from crossing into America.” Honestly, was I the only one who checked to see if this was the Bee?
Just stop exhaling carbon dioxide.
You simply just cannot fix the stupid in some people or entities.
It is baked in, as it is in the case of the CBC.
They are truly a leftist mouthpiece of the government in Canada.
Like “just stop!”. Today? Next week?
The real pollution problem in Canada is poo piles everywhere due to massive immigration from India. The beaches, the hiking trails, you name it
People are going to be shocked when they realize how much Canada has changed. Oh yeah it’s also shockingly authoritarian like England
Hahaha…that’s the driving force for many of these people,isn’t it?
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