800 Canadian wildfires burning as air quality alerts extend to US

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0m7n427xd8o

by geox • 6 days ago

59 47 6 days ago

1970-01-01• 6 days ago

The only good news is it will envelop D.C. today. Fitting to force them to smell their passive dismissal of the global catastrophe of climate change.

summarybot• 6 days ago

Let us each examine and repair our own, personal bond with Nature.

edawg882• 6 days ago

In addition to climate change effects, do you think that preventing wildfires for decades contributes at all? My understanding is that managed burns can be useful at preventing the worst fire fires.

The fact that some trees only germinate in the presence of wildfires points to wildfires being a very natural and pre-human thing. And recent wildfire management practices are likely a strong factor in recent wildfires.

gwerbin• 6 days ago

I don't think that's as relevant for these huge regions of remote forest in Canada as it is for the lower 48 of the USA where you have a lot of population density and ranching and farming in the dry areas that historically burned on a regular basis. Maybe someone in rural Ontario knows the full story.

foxyv• 6 days ago

The answer is: It's complicated

https://www.wilderness.org/articles/article/5-big-myths-abou...

Ecologically, wildfires are necessary for some biomes. However, not all of them. Many are needlessly destructive due to climate change and over logging of forests.

red-iron-pine2• 6 days ago

managed burns have their place in ecosystems where they're common.

most of these fires in Canada are because it needs to be -40C for about 2 weeks to kill off the pine beetle . if the beetle doesn't die then it, as the name suggests, infests pine trees and kills them.

after a couple seasons you have massive, absolutely immense swaths of dead pine trees, full of flammable pine tar and sap. eventually they burn, and the warm temps + beetles mean they don't come back. ecological change, biome collapse.

Teever• 5 days ago

Is it the case that Canada has been implemented substantial forest fire prevention practices?

I’m not an expert in forestry. It it doesn’t seem feasible that Canada was every really doing any large scale forest fire prevention simply due to the scale of the country and forests within it.

AngryData• 6 days ago

It has been pretty bad here in Michigan. Like a heavy smelly fog all day and night. Thick enough to look directly at the sun even. Going outside and not knowing about it would make you think someone was burning a dozen brush heaps next door.

nubinetwork• 6 days ago

As a Canuck, let me say sorry for having so many trees and not enough firefighters, for a second year in a row... at least we have to huff this stuff in before it gets to you, right?

nchmy• 6 days ago

dont debase yourself. that is not something to apologize for

bathtub3652• 6 days ago

Many of these fires are not effectively manageable by people when they get out of control (which can happen easily since they are in very remote areas), and there are a lot of them. They are also spread out over a huge geographical area. The scale is unimaginable so it isn’t a staffing problem.

busymom0• 6 days ago

Canadian here. Sky looked like Breaking Bad in real life.

Also, before this week, I'd never seen the weather app show a yellow map before for air quality.

mikestew2• 6 days ago

Eastern Canada, perhaps? Because B.C. wildfires have made Washington maps go to "very unhealthy" (AQI 201-300), so I'm sure B.C. was above that.

(I'm not sure what "yellow" means where you're at. It's "healthy" according to https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/).

longitudinal93• 6 days ago

And three years ago it was Washington and Oregon fires that were making the air unbreathable in Vancouver

bathtub3652• 6 days ago

In BC when they were at their worst the sky was dark yellow and the sun was a very dark blood red. It was like something I’d never seen before. Think the light level in Seattle during an extremely overcast day with a low ceiling, but everything you look at has been coloured yellow by the sunlight passing through the smoke. It looks a lot like photos from the various Mars missions.

pvaldes7• 6 days ago

More hybrid war

Wildfires in Spain, France and Canada starting at the same time just days after the NATO summit. 60 arsonists detained in France this year for 11000 French wildfires.

Of the 67 new wildfires today in Canada 24 were known caused by man, 27 by natural causes and 16 undetermined. This means that even with this alert level, arsonists may be still provoking between a 36% and a 60% of the wildfires in Canada. This is wrong. It shouldn't be so easy.

Long-distance wispering to fools on social nets has become too easy and profitable.

While people keeps distracted by the "cleaning forest" myth, we can expect that it will turn worse the closer we go to the end of the Ukraine war.

rjrjrjrj4• 6 days ago

Ffs, just the dumbest comments in this thread.

Jumping from “caused by man” to arson is weapons grade stupidity.

pvaldes7• 6 days ago

Countries use a scale of wildfire risk

If there is a clear prohibition to use fire in some location today, because strong winds and low humidity create high risk of wildfires; and somebody still ignores the prohibition and start fire in five different locations in the worse conditions of the year, knowing well that every firefighter is busy yet on one of the other 800 wildfires active, would you still classify that as "accidental"?

Sometimes things are exactly what they seem to be. One barbecue that goes rogue with green level is an accident. With red level conditions, is a crime.

segmondy• 6 days ago

700 miles away and we have the worse air quality in US. something something about everyone thinks they are safe on climate change until it shows up on your doorstep.

red-iron-pine2• 6 days ago

this is stage 1 of the ecological collapse.

it's gonna get a lot worse, and sooner than people think.

Makeitmakesense• 6 days ago

How do you know its not stage 0.5 or stage 3? Genuinely want to understand if this is climate change driven or just apart of the cycle of boreal forest fires that have raged in northern Ontario for centuries.

tencentshill• 5 days ago

Well the smoke issue is going to get better, because the trees burn down once, and may not be able to grow again in the new environment.

heelix• 6 days ago

Minneapolis is about 190nm south of the fires going on in the BWCA - with help of the Canadian fires just North of Ely. Smoke had visibility at our local (KFCM) airfield at 1 mile this morning from the smoke. IFR. I got to wonder if this is going to impact the Oshkosh airshow next week... as what we would travel up is not up for that type of visibility.

everdrive• 5 days ago

I have a stupid question about seasonal wildfires. I was under the impression that a lot of wildfires occurred because too much brush had built up and natural burns had been foolishly prevented by firefighters. However in the past 10 years, it seems that there are many, yearly, huge wildfires in the same areas.

Why doesn't the brush get burned down? ie, why is there not a Canadian wildfire every 5-10 years? Why yearly? Is it different locations? Does dry bush just accumulate that quickly? I'm aware that global warming is a factor, but if there's less to burn I'd think that warmer temperatures eventually hit a wall.

rjrjrjrj4• 5 days ago

What do you mean by same area?

Canada has millions of sq km of forest. Lytton is 700km west of Jasper, which is 2000km west of Thunder Bay.

pvaldes7• 5 days ago

I was under the impression that a lot of wildfires occurred because too much brush had built up

1) People promoting the cattle invading natural areas as a solution, often omit that this means the slow death of the forest.

When the cattle is allowed to enter in a forest, from this point on, no tree sapling will survive. The ecological regeneration is permanently damaged and the forest recedes and turns into an open area with a few isolated trees. With the climate change accelerating, and each new tree counting, this is bad news for us.

2) They also ignore that wild herbivores and insects also eat (a lot of) dry plants.

Biologists have discovered than, under some circumstances, the role of ants in that sense can be more relevant than the role of deer.

3) They forget also that brush is removed by fungus all the time, turning woody stuff into a spongy matter that accumulates water.

A healthy forest can sustain more Kg of soil roundworms than Kg of deer. Most people ignore this and follow only the loudest voices

TV programs invariably, each single time, will show somebody bitterly claiming that "the evil ecologists don't allow locals to remove dead wood". This programs are basically justifying the arsonists. They feed on drama, and never, ever, no way, will interview anybody calmly explaining that there is a good reason for that: After a while, dead wood means fertile soil (= CO2 storage) and water storage. This protects us from both wildfires and climate change.

Both problems should have priority over the desire of farmers to increase its patrimony in 50 sheep plus, by invading natural areas and stealing its plants.

About the fires starting to burn yearly, take in mind that the use of the soil has changed. This is not a forest anymore. Farmers are known to use fire routinely to "regenerate" pastures. When they earn rights to manage new place as they please, the frequency of wildfires will typically increase, even if they are less serious. Is a vicious circle.

pvaldes7• 5 days ago

Norway also attacked today with a huge wildfire.

Same pattern as in France or Greece, with a wildfire starting at just 50 Km of Oslo, but with the smoke aiming directly to choke the capital, like in Paris, or Athens in recent years.

Meanwhile Russian is growing desperate after Ukraine has been targeting its oil tankers one by one in the last month. Germany, Finland, Swedden or Poland should be extra careful in the next weeks.

pvaldes7• 4 days ago

Context matters.

July 6 2026 provoked wildfire in Dorsey UK.

July 7 2026 Prime Minister Carney announced military assistance for Ukraine, including $475 million for the purchase of ammunition, nearly $400 million to build 35 Canadian-made armoured vehicles, and $50 million to provide critical technology and engineering equipment.

July 10 2026 Several wildfires in UK that week. Arsonist woman detained later. Zelensky meets Graham and US implement sanctions against Russia.

July 11 2026. Lindsey Graham dies.

July 12 2026. Large wildfire starts in Ontario. One of the biggest recorded in the area. In two days there will be 180 wildfires active in Ontario.

July 13 2026. Macron meets Zelensky. A 19 Yo arsonist starts a wildfire in Fontainebleu forest near Paris the same day (It has reignited several times since that). July 14 2026. France will allow Ukraine to produce French-made cruise missiles, precision guided bombs and air defense interceptor missiles

July 15 2026. Norway will join the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Holding Russia accountable for crimes committed against Ukraine is a key priority for the Norwegian Government. Two days later: Largest Wildfire in the modern history of Norway starts near Oslo

July 16 2026. Starmer meets Zelensky. Wildfire in Scotland.

Wildfires starting or active in: California, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Texas and Florida between July 7 and July 18.

800 Canadian wildfires burning as air quality alerts extend to US

Related Stories