Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season has taken a deadly turn after two firefighters were killed days apart, prompting a broader reckoning over the mounting economic and human toll of the unprecedented blazes that have charred swaths of the country’s boreal forests.
As of Monday, more than 10m hectares have burned across the country – an area the size of Iceland. Previously, the largest fire season on record was 34 years ago, when 7.6m hectares were left charred. But officials caution this year’s record-breaking season is only halfway done, with the sweltering temperatures expected to persist for the remainder of the summer.
With almost 900 fires burning, nearly 70 million people could once again experience poor air quality alerts from wildfire smoke, with the sooty haze of fires in western Canada expected to move eastwards to parts of the northern US and as far south as Alabama.
In Canada, however, the focus has shifted to a pair of wildfire fighters killed while battling blazes, rare fatalities that have left exhausted crews in mourning.
Officials in the Northwest Territories said this weekend that a firefighter had died on Saturday while battling a 10-hectare blaze near the community of Fort Liard, close to the border with British Columbia. Officials have not named the firefighter nor given a cause of death but on Sunday the territory’s environment minister, Shane Thompson, called the fatality “an unimaginable loss”.
Two days earlier, 19- year-old Devyn Gale died after she was pinned under a falling tree while working on a fire near the city of Revelstoke, close to where she grew up. Gale, a nursing student, was airlifted to hospital but did not survive.
“She personified the iconic reds and blues of wildland firefighting in British Columbia: she was bravery, grit, hard work, determination, leadership and selflessness,” the British Columbia wildfire service said in a statement on Sunday. “She was one of us. She was the heart of us.”
Despite the immensity and scope of the country’s fires, fatalities are relatively rare within wildfire crews, and the two deaths in such a short period have rattled crews, already fatigued and demoralized from long days battling violent and seemingly untamable fires.
The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, called the news “heartbreaking” and his emergency preparedness minister, Bill Blair, said Gale’s death was “a tragic reminder” of the risks fire crews face in the Canadian hinterlands.
In addition to forcing more than 120,000 people from their homes, the fires have also at times halted oil and gas production in Alberta and burned through valuable timber stands on both sides of the country.
Derek Nighbor, head of the Forest Products Association of Canada, told the Canadian Press the “impact is significant”, with mills temporarily shutting down.
Earlier in the season, wildfires dealt a blow to Quebec’s forestry industry, with Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products warning 2023 was “shaping up to be the worst year in over three decades”.
In the country’s west, British Columbia, no stranger to hot summers and smoky skies, is grappling with 360 wildfires, a situation worsened by prolonged drought, hot weather and lightning strikes. On Monday, the province’s wildfire service said an “aggressive” fire cut off a highway after it grew rapidly in size over the weekend, alongside more than a dozen new blazes.
The federal government says two reconnaissance teams from the Canadian armed forces were deployed on Sunday after the province asked for assistance.
Wildfire officials, the armed forces and emergency management personnel from both the province and federal government were due to meet on Monday to discuss how best to use the reconnaissance teams to determine the need for additional assistance.
Over the weekend, fire crews from Australia arrived in British Columbia to help combat the blazes, joining teams from the United States, Mexico and New Zealand. Michael Norton, director general of the Northern Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, previously said an “unprecedented level of international support” was needed to tackle the current fire season.
With hundreds of blazes raging, currently the most in the country, British Columbia is experiencing a sustained and widespread drought, further elevating fire danger to “extreme” in much of the province. Government figures show that four of the 34 basins within the province monitors, including all of Vancouver Island, are at the “most severe” level of drought.
