A new analysis has found that the human-driven climate crisis has made the conditions leading to the current wildfires across Canada twice as likely to occur. These blazes have caused toxic smoke to spread throughout Canada and into the US.
Scientists determined that heightened global temperatures, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified the risk of fire-prone weather in Ontario and the Northwest Territories. These provinces have experienced fires this summer, leading to town evacuations and unhealthy smoke across North America.
There are currently nearly 700 fires ablaze across Canada, affecting 3.8 million hectares, primarily in its boreal forests. A study by World Weather Attribution (WWA) found that the fire weather seen in Canada this year is no longer a rare event.
The climate-influenced conditions that dry out vegetation and soils, making them more prone to combustion, are now expected every two to six years in the Northwest Territories and every six to 15 years in Ontario. Without human-caused global heating, such extreme fire conditions would occur less than once every 40 years, according to the scientists.