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.

Forest fires are an important part of the Canadian landscape. The number of fires and area burned can vary dramatically from year to year, but there are more than 8000 reported wildfires in Canada during a typical year, burning an average of 2.5 million hectares or 25 000 square kilometres. Only 3 percent of fires in Canada reach a final size greater than 200 hectares, but these fires are responsible for 97 percent of the total area burned. This map shows the forest fire ignition causes for fires greater than 200 hectares. The data represent a compilation of all fire point location and perimeters for fires greater than 200 hectares, as provided by fire management agencies of provinces, territories and Parks Canada.

The forest fire map shows forest fires that occurred mainly in the territory of southern Quebec, i.e. the area located south of the territorial limit of attributable forests. This map data makes it possible to improve knowledge about fire regimes and to meet the specific needs of special management plans following forest fires. They can also be used to meet a variety of study and research needs, such as analyzing the impact of climate change, modeling post-fire regeneration, and studying ecosystem dynamics. This information is obtained from and produced from a variety of sources, including satellite images, aerial photographs, field or aerial surveys, fire scar dating, and archival documents. This data contains four types of mapping as well as fire regime mapping: • Detailed fire mapping, from 1976 to the present. This mapping includes burn types, total burn and partial burn, when information is available. In addition, for fires that have been characterized, information on the classes of burning patterns is added. The minimum mapping area can be up to 0.1 ha, depending on the source products used. This map is partially available for areas located in the north of southern Quebec. • Mapping the simplified contours of fires, from 1972 to today. This map shows the external contours of fires (without fragmentation), in order to represent them globally in a product that is easily usable and can be integrated into current information systems, GPS or others. Resulting from the fusion of detailed fire mapping, this product was designed to meet various customer needs. This map is partially available for the sectors located in the north of southern Quebec. • The mapping of the origin of fires having been listed by the protection organizations (e.g.: SOPFEU) for the period from 1972 to today. This mapping includes the date, the source of ignition (human or lightning) and the protection zone. It is available for all of Quebec. • The mapping of ancient fires concerns fires that occurred between the very end of the 19th century and 1975. This mapping comes from the information present on the forest maps of the first and second inventories, as well as from the information contained on the ecoforest maps of the third and fourth inventories. The dating of these fires is done using various methods, including the analysis of study trees bearing fire scars and the consultation of archival documents. This data is available for the following regions: Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (02), Bas-Saint-Laurent (02), Bas-Saint-Laurent (01), Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine (11), Abitibi-Témiscamingue (08), Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec (04-17), and Lanaudière-du-Québec (04-17), and Lanaudière-Laurentides (14-15). • Mapping fire regimes in southern Quebec. This map shows 13 zones with distinct fire regimes. These areas were delineated based on available information on the areas burned during the period 1890-2020 and other potentially decisive environmental variables, such as physiography, the abundance of different tree species known to be dependent on fire as well as the location of natural and anthropogenic ignitions. Fire regime mapping covers all forest areas under management as well as a more northern portion that is not managed. The detailed methodology is presented in Forest Research Paper no. 189 “Zoning fire regimes in southern Quebec” (coming soon). This zoning may be useful to ensure better consideration of the risk of fire in a forest management context. It can also serve as a territorial basis for projecting future fire activity taking into account various factors, such as climate change, fire suppression as well as changes in the types of fuels and their distribution on the territory.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

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.

Summary:The Fire Event Data Suite, or FEDS, algorithm uses high resolution VIIRS observations to map fire perimeters, identify the active portion of fire fronts, and track the progression and attributes of individual fires every 12 hours. For individual fire events, FEDS contains information on the latest active fire detections, as well as the total fire event history in 12 hour increments. The vector output from the FEDS algorithm is produced within approximately 4 hours following the availability of VIIRS 375 m active fire data in FIRMS. The FEDS algorithm was originally developed and tested for large fires in California (Chen et al., (2022)). The EIS Fire team has scaled the production of the fire event tracking approach to cover CONUS and Canada, with data available via OGC API. Data for additional regions, including Alaska and Hawaii, will be released through FIRMS when available.Information on this data and FIRMS can be found here.Suggested Usage:Perimeter data are helpful for understanding the time series progression of a fire event, as observed via the VIIRS sensor. Given the source data, the same considerations that must be taken for FIRMS active fire data are applicable here. All data are experimental and should always be verified with supplementary sources of information when available.The VIIRS Modeled Fire Perimeter Data product provides situational awareness for large fire events in CONUS and Canada every 12 hours, based on the FEDS algorithm and available 375 m VIIRS active fire detection data from Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20. The modeled perimeter is an estimate of the fire-affected area, active portion of the fire perimeter, and metrics of fire behavior. The VIIRS Modeled Fire Perimeter data also provides a history of modeled large fire growth every 12 hours for all fire events detected by VIIRS in CONUS and Canada. By contrast, the USA Fire Perimeter layer is the most recent official incident perimeter data. Official incident data provide a more precise estimate of the perimeter of large fire events in the US than the VIIRS Modeled Fire Perimeter data. The USA Fire Perimeter layer is updated periodically with new official incident perimeter data.Date of Next Image:Updates available at approximate 12-hour intervals.Satellite/Sensor:Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 satellites carrying the VIIRS sensor. The FEDS algorithm uses the locations and sizes of each pixel to derive perimeter information and track individual fire events.Resolution:375m at nadirCredits:NASA Earth Information System (EIS)Doug Morton, Melanie Follette-Cook, Elijah Orland, Tempest McCabe (all GSFC), Yang Chen (UC Irvine)Scientific PaperEsri REST Endpoint:See URL section on right side of page

This dataset provides field data from boreal forests in the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, that were burned by wildfires in 2014. During fieldwork in 2015, 211 burned plots were established. From these plots, thirty-two forest plots were selected that were dominated by black spruce and were representative of the full moisture gradient across the landscape, ranging from xeric to sub-hygric. Plot observations included slope, aspect, and moisture. At each plot, one intact organic soil profile associated with a specific burn depth was selected and analyzed for carbon content and radiocarbon (14C) values at specific profile depth increments to assess legacy carbon presence and combustion. Vegetation observations included tree density. Stand age at the time of the fire was determined from tree-ring counts. Estimates of pre-fire below and aboveground carbon pools were derived. The percent of total NWT wildfire burned area comprising of "young" stands (less than 60 years old at time of fire) was estimated.

Freshwater wetlands are a key feature of the boreal landscape, where the predominant natural disturbance is wildfire. The size and frequency of wildfires, however, are increasing, especially in North America’s boreal areas. To make informed predictions about the effects of such landscape-level changes on freshwater ecosystems and the wildlife that depend on them, understanding bottom-up effects of wildfire, particularly in nutrient-limited boreal wetlands, is a key research need. To address questions related to impacts of fire on wetland trophic structure, we measured total nitrogen, total phosphorous, and chlorophyll-a concentrations, true water colour, macroinvertebrate community characteristics, and indicated breeding scaup (Aythya spp.) pairs in burned and unburned wetlands one to two years following wildfire in a boreal wetland complex in northwestern Canada. Under the trophic enrichment hypothesis, we expected that wetlands in areas recently burned by wildfires would have higher nutrient and productivity levels, darker coloured water, unique macroinvertebrate communities, and a greater abundance of breeding duck pairs than wetlands in unburned areas. Consistent with our predictions, total phosphorous and chlorophyll-a levels were approximately two-fold higher in burned than in unburned wetlands, although this effect was seasonally variable. Conversely, total nitrogen levels and true water colour were similar in burned and unburned wetlands, as were macroinvertebrate taxa and numbers of indicated breeding scaup pairs. Our results suggest that wetland ecosystems in the northwestern boreal forest have some resiliency to and may even benefit from moderate to severe fires under current climate conditions. However, concurrent with ongoing climate change in the north, fire impacts on these freshwater ecosystems are likely to intensify, and continued research will be necessary to understand whether this resilience will persist in the coming decades.

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.

Russia has had the highest average annual tree cover loss due to fires since the turn of the century. On average, Russian forests have lost 2.5 million hectares of tree cover per year since 2001. Canada followed, with tree cover loss of 1.5 million hectares per year.

Bumble bees are important pollinators in temperate forested regions where fire is a driving force for habitat change, and thus understanding how these insects respond to fire is critical. Previous work has shown bees are often positively affected by the post-fire environment, with burned sites supporting greater bee abundance and diversity, and increased floral resources. The extent to which fire impacts variation in bumble bee site occupancy is not well understood, especially in higher latitude regions with dense, primarily coniferous forests. Occupancy models are powerful tools for biodiversity analyses, as they separately estimate occupancy probability (likelihood that a species is present at a particular location) and detection probability (likelihood of observing a species when it is present). Using these models, we tested whether bumble bee site occupancy is higher in burned locations as a result of the increase in canopy openness, floral species richness, and floral abundance. We quantified the impact of fire, and associated habitat changes, on bumble bee species' occupancy in an area with high wildfire frequency in British Columbia, Canada. The burn status of a site was the only significant predictor for determining bumble bee occurrence (with burned sites having higher occupancy); floral resource availability and canopy openness only impacted detection probability (roughly, sample bias). These findings highlight the importance of controlling for the influence of habitat on species detection in pollinator studies and suggest that fire in this system changes the habitat for bumble bees in positive ways that extend beyond our measurements of differences in floral resources and canopy cover. Methods Our study was conducted on the unceded territories of the Nuxalk and Ulkatcho First Nations, in and around Tweedsmuir Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada, from June to August 2019 (Fig. 1). We established sites both in and adjacent to four wildfire zones, two of which are recent burns (2017 and 2018) and two of which are older burns (2009 and 2010), though the older burns had not significantly regenerated, as high burn severity and high elevation have limited tree and shrub regrowth. Three of the burns were large in scale (2,800 to over 7,000 hectares), and the most recent burn was smaller (40 hectares). The unburned sites were in forest habitat adjacent to each of these burned areas. We sampled a total of 26 circular sites of 100m diameter, 13 in areas impacted by fire (4 in each large fire and 1 in the smaller fire) which we call "burned" sites, and 13 in nearby unaffected forest, which we call "unburned" sites. We selected sites such that edges were a minimum of 1 km from all other site edges to ensure spatial independence, as bumble bee foraging most frequently occurs within 1 kilometre of their nest (Greenleaf 2007, Geib 2015, Kendall 2022). We visited each site twice over the course of the season and, due to logistical constraints, sampled groups of 3–8 sites in spatial and temporal blocks with block composition differing slightly between visits. However, sites were re-sampled in a similar order, such that visits to sites were separated by similar time periods (4–6 weeks between revisits). To sample bumble bees, we used blue vane traps (three per site), collecting samples after traps had been out for 2–4 days, in order to ensure minimal negative impacts on bee populations (see Kimoto 2012 and Gibbs 2017 for evidence of negative impacts of long-term trap collecting). We selected blue vane traps as our primary collection method because our site arrangement and sampling structure necessitated the use of passive sampling and because previous work has shown that blue vanes are one of the most effective for per-sample species accumulation (Joshi 2015). Blue vanes are highly attractive to bumble bees (Stephen 2007) and have been shown to collect similar species sets to those obtained by active netting (Rao 2009). In addition, we performed supplementary spot netting surveys, only at burned sites, for 60 person-minutes per visit either during trap setup or trap take down. We did not net bees at unburned sites because, early in the season, many unburned sites had few to no open flowers from which we could collect bees. Netting was conducted as long as temperature was greater than 15 degrees C, wind speed was below 2 m/s, and there was no precipitation. We identified each bumble bee to species using the key in Williams' North American field guide (2014), and follow the bumble bee taxonomy therein, with the updated revision to Alpinobombus for B. kirbiellus (Williams 2019). During sampling visits, we also recorded site-level habitat variables, either when blue vane traps were set up or when they were collected. To quantify canopy openness and floral resource availability, we established two 100m transects in N-S and E-W directions at each site. For canopy openness, we took six evenly-spaced upward-facing photographs per transect (using a Canon 5D MK I with Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye Lens), for a total of 12 photos per site. We counted all open flowers from a total of 76 different species (we include a full list of floral species and information about attractiveness to bumble bees as a supplementary file, Online Resource 1) along each of the 3mx100m transects, identified to species or genus using local field guides and online resources (Pojar 1994, Parish 1999, e-flora-BC). We calculated floral abundance and species richness by pooling open flower counts (later, floral abundance was log-transformed) and number of flowering plant species across transects. We measured canopy openness at a site level (once per site) and floral resource information at a visit level (twice per site). To determine canopy openness at each site, we analysed the upward fisheye photos in Gap Light Analyser (GLA), a program designed for analysis of hemispherical canopy cover photos (Frazer 1999). We used default settings (Registration: Geographic North, Location: none added, Orientation: horizontal, Topographic shading: Use topographic mask data, Solar time step: 2 minutes, Azimuth regions: 36, Zenith regions: 9, Data source: modelled, Solar constant: 1367 Wm-2, Cloudiness index: 0.5kt, Spectral fraction: 0.5, Units: Mols m-2 d-1, Beam fraction: 0.5, Sky-region brightness: UOC Model) along with a custom projection distortion specific to our lens. GLA relies on contrast between sky and foliage to determine percent canopy cover. This required that we sometimes draw boundaries manually and then set local thresholds accordingly in order to ensure correct classification. We used a blue colour plane, as recommended, to enhance contrast between canopy cover and sky. In some cases (e.g., when the sun reflected off trees) it yielded a "canopy" section that was brighter than sky. To ensure correct classification, we manually traced the canopy cover and applied the colour fill tool. To calculate canopy cover at the site level, we calculated the mean cover across the 12 photos for each site.

Large primary forest residuals can still be found in boreal landscapes. Their areas are however shrinking rapidly due to anthropogenic activities, in particular industrial-scale forestry. The impacts of logging activities on primary boreal forests may also strongly differ from those of wildfires, the dominant stand-replacing natural disturbance in these forests. Since industrial-scale forestry is driven by economic motives, there is a risk that stands of higher economic value will be primarily harvested, thus threatening habitats, and functions related to these forests. Hence, the objective of this study was to identify the main attributes differentiating burned and logged stands prior to disturbance in boreal forests. The study territory lies in the coniferous and closed-canopy boreal forest in Québec, Canada, where industrial-scale logging and wildfire are the two main stand-replacing disturbances. Based on Québec government inventories of primary forests, we identified 427 transects containing about 5.5 circular field plots/transect that were burned or logged shortly after being surveyed, between 1985 and 2016. Comparative analysis of the main structural and environmental attributes of these transects highlighted the strong divergence in the impact of fire and harvesting on primary boreal forests. Overall, logging activities mainly harvested forests with the highest economic value, while most burned stands were low to moderately productive or recently disturbed. These results raise concerns about the resistance and resilience of remnant primary forests within managed areas, particularly in a context of disturbance amplification due to climate change. Moreover, the majority of the stands studied were old-growth forests, characterized by a high ecological value but also highly threatened by anthropogenic disturbances. A loss in the diversity and functionality of primary forests, and particularly the old-growth forests, therefore adds to the current issues related to these ecosystems. Since 2013, the study area is under ecosystem-based management, which implies that there have been marked changes in forestry practices. Complementary research will be necessary to assess the capacity of ecosystem-based management to address the challenges identified in our study.

Cumulative effects of anthropogenic and natural disturbances have become increasingly relevant in the context of biodiversity conservation. Oil and gas (OG) exploration and extraction activities have created thousands of kilometers of linear footprints in boreal ecosystems of Alberta, Canada. Among these disturbances, seismic lines (narrow corridors cut through the forest) are one of the most common footprints and have become a significant landscape feature influencing the maintenance of forest interior habitats and biodiversity. Wildfire is a common stand-replacing natural disturbance in the boreal forest, and as such, it is hypothesized that its effects can mitigate the linear footprint associated with OG exploration, but only a few studies have examined its effectiveness. We studied the short-term (1 year post-fire) response of rove beetle assemblages to the combined effects of wildfire and linear footprint in forest, edge and seismic line habitats at burned and unburned peatlands along the southwest perimeter of the 2016 Horse River wildfire (Fort McMurray). While rove beetle species richness was higher in seismic lines in both burned and unburned habitats compared to the adjacent peatland, diversity was greater only in seismic lines of burned areas. Abundance was lower in the burned adjacent peatland but similarly higher in the remaining habitats. Assemblage composition on seismic lines was significantly different from that in the adjacent forest and edge habitats within both burned and unburned sites. Moreover, species composition in burned seismic lines was different to either unburned lines or burned forest and edge. Euaesthethus laeviusculus and Gabrius picipennis were indicator species of burned line habitats, are sensitive to post-fire landscape and can occupy wet habitats with moss cover more efficiently than when these habitats are surrounded by unburned forest. Although these results are based on short-term responses, they suggest that wildfire did not reduce the linear footprint, and instead, the cumulative effect of these two disturbances had a more complex influence on rove beetle recovery at the landscape level than for other invertebrates. Therefore, continued monitoring of these sites can become useful to evaluate changes over time and to better understand longer-term biodiversity responses to the cumulative effects of wildfire and linear disturbances in boreal treed peatlands, given the long-lasting effect of such disturbances. Methods This study was conducted along the southwest perimeter of the 2016 Horse River wildfire, south of Fort McMurry, Alberta (56°46′13″ N, 118°22′28″ W). This area included 15 peatland sites within (“Burned”, n=9) and outside the burned area (“Unburned”, n=6). Sites were disturbed by conventional seismic lines that were built 15-20 years prior to the wildfire event. All sites were at least 200 m from roads and were at least 2.4 km from each other. Sites were located in treed peatlands dominated by black spruce (Picea mariana (Miller) Britton, Sterns & Poggenburgh) in the overstory, and sphagnum (Sphagnum L. spp.), bog haircap (Polytrichum stictum Brid.), red-stemmed feathermoss (Pleurozium schreberi (Brid.) Mitt.), sedges (Carex L. spp.), horsetails (Equisetum L. spp.), three-leaved false Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum trifolium (L.) Sloboda), Labrador tea (Rhododendrum greoenlandicum (Oeder) Kron & Jud), cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus L.), mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.), bogbirch (Betula pumila L.), and willows (Salix L. spp.) in the understory. For sites within the fire perimeter, severity of burns was low on seismic lines but severe in both forest and edge habitats. At each site, we installed three parallel 50 m transects, each in one of three habitat types: along the center of the seismic line (“Line” habitat), along the forest edge approximately 10 m from the line (“Edge” habitat), and in the adjacent peatland approximately 50 m from the line (“Forest” habitat). Edge and Forest transects were located on the same side of the seismic line at each site. We collected rove beetles using pitfall traps (1L in volume, 12 cm diameter) dug into the peat with their upper rims leveled with the ground surface. Traps were filled with approximately 200 ml of propylene glycol as a killing agent and preservative, and were covered with a suspended opaque plastic roof to minimize flooding by rainfall and accumulation of debris. Along each transect, we installed five traps every 10 m for a total of 15 traps/site. We collected trap contents at three-week intervals between May 20 and September 15 of 2017. Adult rove beetles were sorted out from the pitfall samples in the laboratory and identified to the species level using relevant taxonomic literature. Specimens in the subfamily Pselaphinae were identified to the genus level since reliable taxonomic keys for local species are not available. Species in the subfamily Aleocharinae were excluded due todifficulties in species-level identification. Voucher specimens are deposited in the Invertebrate Museum at the Northern Forestry Center (Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service) in Edmonton, Alberta.

Exploration practices for oil sands developments in the boreal forest of western Canada create a network of thousands of kilometers of linear features, particularly seismic lines that dissect these forests posing significant environmental challenges. As wildfire is one of the prevalent stand-replacing natural disturbances in the Canadian boreal forest, it is an important driver of environmental change and stand development that may contribute to the mitigation of such linear industrial footprint. Here, we evaluate the short-term cumulative (also known as combined) effects of seismic lines and wildfire on biodiversity and site conditions. One year after the Horse River (Fort McMurray, Alberta) fire event in the spring of 2016, we compared dissected and undisturbed forests in burned and unburned boreal peatlands, assessing changes in overall stand structure and the responses of a variety of organisms. Soil moisture was significantly higher on seismic lines than in the adjacent forest, suggesting why most of the study sites within the fire perimeter showed little evidence of burning at the line in relation to the adjacent forest. Low fire severity on seismic lines seemed an important driver of local species diversity for ants, beetles, spiders, and plants in disturbed peatlands, resulting in similar species composition on seismic lines both within and outside the burned area, but different assemblages in burned and unburned adjacent forests. Our results suggest that fire did not erase seismic lines; rather, wildfire might increase the influence of this footprint on the recovering adjacent forest. Longer term monitoring will be necessary to understand how boreal treed peatlands respond to the cumulative effect of wildfire and linear disturbances.

As climate warming exacerbates wildfire risks, prompt wildfire detection is an essential step in designing an efficient suppression strategy, monitoring wildfire behavior and, when necessary, issuing evacuation orders. In this context, there is increasing demand for estimates of returns on wildfire investments and their potential for cost savings. Using fire-level data from Western Canada during 2015–2020, the paper associates variation in wildfire reporting delays with variation in suppression costs. We use machine learning and orthogonalization methods to isolate the impact of reporting delays from nonlinear impacts of the fire environment. We find that reporting delays account for only three percent of total suppression costs. Efforts to improve detection and reduce wildfire reporting delays by one hour lead to a modest 0.25% reduction in suppression costs. These results suggest that investments in detection systems that reduce wildfire reporting delays are not justified on suppression costs savings alone.