In Quebec, the taiga burns continuously on over 1.5 million hectares. The record fire is crackling 1,300 kilometers north of Montreal, devouring dry moss under a cloudless but smoke-filled sky. This fire represents a significant portion of the 9.9 million hectares of forests and grasslands that have already been reduced to rubble in Canada. Since the beginning of the year, the flames have destroyed an area equivalent to the size of Portugal. On Thursday, July 13, a firefighter died during an operation in the west of the country.

This fire season, “the worst thing ever recorded”, according to the Canadian government, but is only halfway through. THE Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC)which coordinates the deployment of firefighters at the national level, notes that of the 3,989 fires registered since January, 901 are still active. “At the moment there are fewer than in 1989, a significant year when there were 12,204 fires, comments Marieke de Roos, communications manager at CIFFC. But the fires of 2023 will burn larger spaces. » Compared to the last four decades, this trend is confirmed across the country through a study of the center: The number of forest fires is decreasing, but their intensity is increasing.

The Great Plains of Alberta in the west of the country are accustomed to fires, but the flames have already affected eight times more hectares than the five-year average. And when June rains wash away most of the fires after a particularly heavy month of May, firefighters remain on alert. “We still have several weeks of intense heat ahead of us and the northwest is already warming.”warns Josée St-Onge, spokesman for the Alberta Forest Fire Service. The same applies to the Yukon, a Canadian region next to Alaska that has so far been relatively spared from the embers.

Quebec burned more than usual and 1,044 firefighters are battling fires there, closer to communities than ever before. The increase in outbreaks is encouraging them to focus their efforts on the most spectacular fires: In Alberta, around 2,100 firefighters extinguished only five fires. Even if that means that dozens of kilometers of forest further north go up in flames. “The priority is to put out fires near communities and industries”supports M^Me St Onge. The firefighters’ strategy we call “Sustainable action” (“sustainable action”, in French) has become the federal standard: it is no longer about stopping the fires, but about containing them as much as possible.

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