In 2023, more than 17.3 million hectares of land had burned in Canada because of forest fires. This was the largest annual land loss due to wildfires since records started. The number of forest fires in Canada stood at around 5,475 in 2023. The cost of Canadian wildfires In Canada, estimated property losses due to forest fires from 1970 to 2020 amounted to almost 250 million Canadian dollars. The province of British Columbia was by far the most affected, with losses of 115.4 million Canadian dollars, followed by Ontario with 57.9 million Canadian dollars.On the human side, the largest evacuation caused by wildfires in the North American country from 1980 to 2019 occurred in 2016, when more than 92,000 people were displaced. The Fort McMurray wildfire – the costliest natural catastrophe in Canadian history – took place that year. A worldwide picture Wildfires have been wreaking havoc around the world in recent years. In 2022 alone, around 5.2 million hectares of tree cover were lost due to wildfires. A year earlier, wildfire tree cover loss reached the peak of the century so far, with more than seven million hectares. In the past century, Russia has seen the largest annual tree cover loss due to wildfires, with an average of 2.5 million hectares. Canada is the second most impacted country in the world, with an average annual loss of roughly 1.3 million hectares during the same period.

There were a total of 5,475 forest fires in Canada in 2023. As of November 2024, the total annual figure from the previous year almost gets surpassed at 5,374 fire stats in Canadian territory. Forest fires in Canada Forest fires in Canada have burned an average of 2.2 million hectares annually since 2000. Forest fires or wildfires are named so because they occur in areas such as woodlands, grasslands, and scrublands. They are not confined to remote forest areas and can cause extensive property damage and threaten the lives of people who live in transitional areas between regions of human habitation and wilderness. Since 2000, forest fires have caused an estimated 3.76 million Canadian dollars annually. A recent major forest fire which began in Fort McMurray, Alberta is likely to be the most economically damaging disaster in Canada’s history, according to insurers. The fires have also affected Alberta’s oil sands operations which have a significant impact on Canada’s GDP. What are the causes of forest fires? The Fort McMurray fire of 2016, like many forest fires, is suspected to have been caused by human activities. Fires started by humans can be intentional, as in the case of arson, or accidental, such as failing to fully extinguish a camp fire or cigarette. The most common natural cause of forest fires is human activity, which accounted for 2,719 fires in 2020.

Get data on forest fires, compiled annually for the National Forestry Database

The National Forestry Database includes national forest data and forest management statistics to seve as a credible, accurate and reliable source of information on forest management and its impact on the forest resource.

Forest fire data is grouped into eight categories, which are further broken down by geographic location. These include:

• number of fires by cause class and response category
• area burned by cause class and response category
• number of fires by month and response category
• area burned by month and response category
• number of fires by fire size class and response category
• area burned by fire size class and response category
• area burned by productivity class, stocking class, maturity class and response category
• other fire statistics, such as property losses

There were 2,719 forest fires caused by human activity in Canada in 2020, making it the main cause for wildfires in the country. This was an increase compared to the previous year, when there were 2,400 human activity-caused forest fire.

Incident-based fire statistics, by type of casualty, age group of casualty, status of casualty and type of structure, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Canadian Armed Forces, 2005 to 2021.

Hotspots represent active wildfires. Natural Resources Canada Canadian Wild Fire Information System identifies them by processing Infrared satellite images. This layer contains the hotspots that are selected to be used as input for the Regional Air Quality Deterministic Prediction System FireWork (RAQDPS-FW) to enable forecasting air quality while taking into account wildfire emissions. Geographical coverage is Canada and the United States. The products are presented as historical annual compilations which highlight long-term trends in cumulative effects on the environment.

In 2018, the total cost of property lost in Canada as a result of forest fires was estimated to be 3.35 million Canadian dollars. Based on the latest available data, Ontario had forest fire related property losses worth 351,580 Canadian dollars in 2020.

This web map shows the current wildfires and fire danger zones within Canada. The layers used within this web map are Esri Canada's wildfire live feature services that are updated daily along with NRCan's current fire danger WMS. A description of each layer can be found below along with the link to their respective items on ArcGIS Online.***The live feature services within this webmap are now paused and will not receive data updates until next fire season. April 1st, 2025 is the predicated date for this service to resume***Active Wildfires in CanadaReported active fire locations are updated daily as provided by fire management agencies (provinces, territories and Parks Canada). The fires data is managed through a national Data Integration Project (DIP) coordinated by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) and Natural Resources Canada with participation from all partner agencies. The active fires data includes attributes for agency, fire name, latitude, longitude, start date, fire size (ha) and stage of control (fire status). Possible values for stage of control include: OC (Out of Control), BH (Being Held), UC (Under Control), EX (Out).Supplemental InformationThe national Data Integration Project (DIP) is coordinated by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) and Natural Resources Canada with participation from all partner agencies. This initiative focuses on development and implementation of data standards and enabling the exchange and access of national fire data. More details are available in the CIFFC IM/IT Strategy, available at: https://ciffc.ca/publications/general-publications.Feux de végétation actifs au CanadaLes positions rapportées des feux de végétation actifs sont mises à jour quotidiennement d'après les données fournies par les agences de gestion des feux (provinces, territoires et Parcs Canada). Les données sur les feux sont gérées dans le cadre d'un Projet d'intégration de données national coordonné par le Centre interservices des feux de forêt du Canada (CIFFC) et par Ressources naturelles Canada, avec la participation de tous les organismes partenaires. Les données sur les feux actifs comprennent les champs d'attributs des agences, le nom du feu, la latitude, la longitude, le début du feu, la taille du feu (ha) et le stade de contrôle (état du feu). Les valeurs possibles pour le stade de contrôle sont les suivantes : OC (out of control/hors de contrôle), BH (being held/contenu), UC (under control/maîtrisé) et EX (out/éteint).Renseignements complémentairesLe Projet d'intégration de données national est coordonné par le CIFFC et par Ressources naturelles Canada, avec la participation de tous les organismes partenaires. Cette initiative a pour but d'élaborer et de mettre en œuvre des normes de données, ainsi que de rendre possible l'accès aux données nationales sur les feux et l'échange de ces données. On trouvera plus de détails à ce sujet dans la Stratégie de GI/TI du CIFFC, à l'adresse suivante : https://ciffc.ca/publications/general-publicationsActive Wildfire Perimeters in CanadaThis dataset displays active wildfire perimeters derived from hotspots identified in satellite imagery provided by the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) updated every 3 hours. || Ce jeu de données, mis à jour toutes les trois heures, affiche les périmètres de feux de forêt actifs dérivés des points chauds relevés dans l’imagerie satellite fournie par le Système canadien d’information sur les feux de végétation (SCIFV) et Ressources naturelles Canada (RNCan).Wildfire Smoke Forecast in CanadaThis layer displays forecasted wildfire smoke across Canada sourced from BlueSky Canada's FireSmoke Canada app, updated every 6 hours. The wildfire smoke layer consists of hourly concentrations of particulate matter 2.5 microns and smaller (PM2.5) in units of micrograms per meter cubed (µg/m3) observed at ground level from wildfires. It is an approximation of when and where wildfire smoke events may occur over the next two days. This layer is sourced from BlueSky Canada's FireSmoke Canada app.Current Fire DangerFire Danger is a relative index of how easy it is to ignite vegetation, how difficult a fire may be to control, and how much damage a fire may do. Fire Danger is a reclassification of the CFFDRS fire weather index (FWI) which is a numeric rating of fire intensity.These general fire descriptions apply to most coniferous forests. The national fire danger maps show conditions as classified by the provincial and territorial fire management agencies. Choice and interpretation of classes may vary between provinces. For fuel-specific fire behavior, consult the Fire Behavior Prediction maps.• Low: Fires likely to be self-extinguishing and new ignitions unlikely. Any existing fires limited to smoldering in deep, drier layers.• Moderate: Creeping or gentle surface fires. Fires easily contained by ground crews with pumps and hand tools.• High: Moderate to vigorous surface fire with intermittent crown involvement. Challenging for ground crews to handle; heavy equipment (bulldozers, tanker trucks, aircraft) often required to contain fire.• Very High: High-intensity fire with partial to full crown involvement. Head fire conditions beyond the ability of ground crews; air attack with retardant required to effectively attack fire's head.• Extreme: Fast-spreading, high-intensity crown fire. Very difficult to control. Suppression actions limited to flanks, with only indirect actions possible against the fire's head.Forecasted weather data provided by Environment Canada. More information about forecasted weather is available at https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/background/dsm/fwiMore information about the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System is available at https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/background/summary/fwiMaps are produced using Spatial Fire Management System and are updated multiple times per day.Maps updated daily, year-round.Supplemental InformationThe Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS). is a national system for rating the risk of forest fires in Canada.Forest fire danger is a general term used to express a variety of factors in the fire environment, such as ease of ignition and difficulty of control. Fire danger rating systems produce qualitative and/or numeric indices of fire potential, which are used as guides in a wide variety of fire management activities.The CFFDRS has been under development since 1968. Currently, two subsystems–the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System and the Canadian Forest Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System–are being used extensively in Canada and internationally.Risque d'incendie actuelLe risque d'incendie est un indice relatif indiquant le niveau de facilité pour allumer un incendie de végétation, le niveau de difficulté qu'un incendie peut demander pour être contrôlé ainsi que la quantité de dommages qu'un incendie peut causer.Ces descriptions générales des incendies s'appliquent à la plupart des forêts de conifères. Les cartes nationales sur le danger d'incendie illustrent les conditions telles qu'elles sont classées par les agences provinciales et territoriales de gestion des feux. Le choix et l'interprétation des classes peuvent varier entre les provinces. En ce qui a trait au comportement des incendies en regard du combustible spécifique, veuillez consulter les cartes de prédiction du comportement des incendies.• Faible: Incendie possiblement auto-extincteur; de nouveaux allumages sont invraisemblables. Tout incendie existant est limité à couver dans des couches profondes plus sèches.• Modéré: Incendie de surface rampant modéré. Il est facilement circonscrit par les équipes au sol munies de pompes et d'outils manuels.• Élevé: Incendie de surface modéré à vigoureux avec implication intermittente des cimes. Pose des défis aux équipes chargées de le combattre sur le terrain; les équipements lourds (bouteurs, camions-citernes à eau et avions) sont souvent requis pour contenir l'incendie.• Très élevé: Incendie de forte intensité avec implication partielle ou complète des cimes. Les conditions au front de l'incendie sont au-delà de la capacité des équipes sur le terrain à y faire face; les attaques aériennes avec largage de produits ignifugeants sont requises pour combattre effectivement le front de l'incendie.• Extrême: Feu de cimes à forte intensité et à propagation rapide. Très difficile à contrôler. Les actions de suppression sont limitées aux flancs alors que seules des actions indirectes sont possibles au front de l'incendie.Prévisions météorologiques fournies par Environnement Canada. Pour de plus amples renseignements sur les prévisions, consultez la section Renseignements généraux.De plus amples informations sur la Méthode canadienne de l'indice Forêt-Météo (IFM) sont disponibles à la rubrique Renseignements généraux.Les cartes sont produites à l'aide du Système de gestion spatiale des feux de forêt et sont mises à jour plusieurs fois par jour.Les cartes sont mises à jour quotidiennement, tout au long de l'année l'année.Renseignements complémentairesLa Méthode canadienne d'évaluation des dangers d'incendie de forêt (MCEDIF) est une méthode nationale pour classer le risque d'incendie de forêt au Canada.Le danger d'incendie de forêt est un terme général employé pour exprimer une diversité de facteurs dans les conditions de brûlage tels que la facilité d'allumage et la difficulté de contrôle. Les méthodes d'évaluation du danger d'incendie génèrent des indices qualitatifs ou numériques du potentiel d'incendie qui sont utilisés comme guides dans une grande variété d'activités de gestion des incendies de forêt.La MCEDIF est en cours d'élaboration depuis 1968. En ce moment, deux sous-systèmes – la Méthode

Incident-based fire statistics, by type of fire incident, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Canadian Armed Forces, 2005 to 2021.

The Regional Air Quality Deterministic Prediction System FireWork (RAQDPS-FW) carries out physics and chemistry calculations, including emissions from active wildfires, to arrive at deterministic predictions of chemical species concentration of interest to air quality, such as fine particulate matter PM2.5 (2.5 micrometers in diameter or less). Geographical coverage is Canada and the United States. Data is available at a horizontal resolution of 10 km. While the system encompasses more than 80 vertical levels, data is available only for the surface level. The products are presented as historical, annual or monthly, averages which highlight long-term trends in cumulative effects on the environment.

Dataset including information on wildfires in the province of Alberta from 1983 to 1995, inclusive. Information tracked for each fire includes: cause, size, location (latitude and longitude, legal land description, and forest area), time and duration, weather conditions, staffing and physical resources used to suppress the fire, and area burned.

Wildfires in Canada emitted approximately 480 megatons of carbon in 2023, accounting for 23 percent of total global wildfire carbon emissions that year. The amount of carbon emitted by Canadian wildfires in 2023 was more than triple the country's previous record, registered in 2014. The 2023 wildfire season in Canada burned roughly 11.5 million hectares, making it the country's most destructive wildfire season on record.

Dataset including information on wildfires in the province of Alberta from 1996 to 2005, inclusive. Information tracked for each fire includes: cause, size, location (latitude and longitude, legal land description, and forest area), time and duration, weather conditions, staffing and physical resources used to suppress the fire, and area burned.

IMPORTANT NOTICE This item has moved to a new organization and will be entering Mature Support on October 31st, 2025. We encourage you to switch to using the item on the new organization as soon as possible to avoid any disruptions within your workflows. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below or email our Living Atlas Curator (livingatlascurator@esri.ca) The new version of this item can be found here This service is now paused and will not receive data updates until next fire season. April 1st, 2025 is the predicated date for this service to resumeThe reported active fire locations are updated daily as provided by fire management agencies (provinces, territories and Parks Canada). The wildfires data is managed through a national Data Integration Project (DIP) coordinated by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) and Natural Resources Canada with participation from all partner agencies. This initiative focuses on the development and implementation of data standards and enabling the exchange and access of national fire data. More details are available in the CIFFC IM/IT Strategy page: https://ciffc.ca/publications/general-publications.The active fires data includes attributes for agency, fire name, latitude, longitude, start date, fire burn area (ha), time zone and stage of control (fire status). The 4 stages of control include:Out of Control (OC)Being Held (BH)Under Control (UC)Other (Various percentages of control)The fire burn areas in hectares are calculated or estimated by the agencies using a variety of methods from simple visual estimation and satellite hotspot buffering to more advanced methods such as helicopter GPS flight, air photography, and Landsat image classification.Additional Resources: The metadata for the active fires service can be accessed through the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS) Datamart page and by this interactive map: https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/interactive-map.Update Frequency:The feature service is created from the active fires csv provided on NRCan's metadata page and is updated every 3 hours using a Notebook only during wildfire season. It should be noted that the active fires csv includes fire sizes of less than 1 hectare whereas as WFS version does not. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Les emplacements des incendies actifs signalés sont mis à jour quotidiennement et fournis par les organismes de gestion des incendies (provinces, territoires et Parcs Canada). Les données sur les feux sont gérées dans le cadre d’un projet d’intégration de données national coordonné par le Centre interservices des feux de forêt du Canada (CIFFC) et par Ressources naturelles Canada, avec la participation de tous les organismes partenaires. Cette initiative vise principalement le développement et la mise en œuvre de normes de données et cherche à rendre accessibles et partageables les données nationales sur les incendies. Plus de détails sont offerts dans le document traitant de la stratégie de gestion de l’information et de la technologie du Centre interservices des feux de forêt du Canada (CIFFC) : https://ciffc.ca/publications/general-publications.Les données sur les incendies actifs comprennent des attributs relatifs à l’organisme, le nom de l’incendie, la latitude, la longitude, la date de début, la superficie brûlée (ha), le fuseau horaire et l’étape de contrôle (état de l’incendie). Les quatre étapes du contrôle sont les suivantes:Hors contrôle (OC pour Out of Control)Contenu (BH pour Being Held )Maîtrisé (UC pour Under Control)Autres (divers pourcentages de contrôle)Les superficies brûlées en hectares sont calculées ou estimées par les organismes à l’aide d’une variété de méthodes, qui vont de la simple estimation visuelle et à l’établissement par satellite de zones tampons autour des points chauds, pour passer à des méthodes plus avancées telles que le vol GPS par hélicoptère, la photographie aérienne et la classification d’images Landsat.Autres ressources: Les métadonnées du service des feux actifs sont accessibles par l’intermédiaire du mini-entrepôt de données du Système canadien d’information sur les feux de végétation (SCIFV), ainsi que par cette carte interactive: https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/carte-interactive.Fréquence de mise à jour:Le service d’entité est créé à partir des fichiers CSV des feux actifs fournis sur la page de métadonnées de RNCan. Il est mis à jour toutes les trois heures à l’aide d’un bloc-notes, uniquement pendant la saison des feux de forêt (avril-octobre). Il convient de noter que le fichier CSV des incendies actifs comprend les incendies de moins d’un hectare, ce qui n’est pas le cas pour la version WFS.

In 2020, the month with the highest number of wildfires in Canada was May, with almost 930 fires reported. During the same month, the province with the biggest area affected was Manitoba with approximately 1.3 million hectares burned.

Wildland fire has a major impact on the sustainability of many Canadian forests. Fire policies attempt to balance suppression costs with values at risk while recognizing the natural role of fire in managing the landscape. There are three aspects of wildland fire in Canada: fire regimes, fire management, and fire research.

Get data on fire response plan area boundaries and recommended response types for wildfires. This dataset shows the boundaries of fire response plan areas and provides the recommended response type that corresponds to the official fire response plan for each area. Fire response types include: * full response * modified response * monitored response * prescribed fire The Forest Fire Info Map shows active fires, current fire danger and restricted fire zones in place due to high fire danger.

The number of disastrous wildfires in Canada has increased each decade since the 1980s. The 2010s recorded the largest number of major wildfires in Canada, at 36. In comparison, only nine such disasters occurred in Canada in the 80's.

The fire regime describes the patterns of fire seasonality, frequency, size, spatial continuity, intensity, type (e.g., crown or surface fire) and severity in a particular area or ecosystem. The number of large fires refers to the annual number of fires greater than 200 hectares (ha) that occur per units of 100,000 ha. It was calculated per Homogeneous Fire Regime (HFR) zones. These HFR zones represent areas where the fire regime is similar over a broad spatial scale (Boulanger et al. 2014). Such zonation is useful in identifying areas with unusual fire regimes that would have been overlooked if fires had been aggregated according to administrative and/or ecological classifications. Fire data comes from the Canadian National Fire Database covering 1959–1999 (for HFR zones building) and 1959-1995 (for model building). Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) modeling was used to relate monthly fire regime attributes with monthly climatic/fire-weather in each HFR zone. Future climatic data were simulated using the Canadian Earth System Model version 2 (CanESM2) and downscaled at a 10 Km resolution using ANUSPLIN for two different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). RCPs are different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its fifth Assessment Report. RCP 2.6 (referred to as rapid emissions reductions) assumes that greenhouse gas concentrations peak between 2010-2020, with emissions declining thereafter. In the RCP 8.5 scenario (referred to as continued emissions increases) greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise throughout the 21st century. Provided layer: projected number of large fires (>200 ha) across Canada for the short-term (2011-2040) under the RCP 8.5 (continued emissions increases). Reference: Boulanger, Y., Gauthier, S., et al. 2014. A refinement of models projecting future Canadian fire regimes using homogeneous fire regime zones. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 44, 365–376.

This dataset shows the locations of ignition points for forest fires less than 40 hectares in size. Fires that grow larger than 40 hectares are mapped in the Fire Disturbance Area dataset.

The Forest Fire Info Map shows active fires, current fire danger and restricted fire zones in place due to high fire danger.