The Boulder Creek Wildfire on July 3, 2015, Canada. (Photo Credit: BC Wildfire Management Branch/Facebook)
This year is shaping up to be Canada’s worst fire season on record, with mandatory evacuations and soldiers deployed to contain blazes. On Wednesday, there were 96 wildfires burning in Alberta, 13 out of control.
The economic impacts of these raging wildfires are being felt near and far — other western provinces such as British Columbia (B.C.) and Saskatchewan are reeling as well. As of July 10, over $77 million had been spent fighting wildfires in B.C. this season. On that date, there were 197 active fires burning in B.C. and of those, 19 were “active fires of note.” (For reference, 15 new fires had ignited in the province the day before.) The provincial government only allocated $48.7 million to fire costs this season, and the summer is not even halfway over.
Last Friday, Cameco Corp. and AREVA Resources Canada suspended uranium shipments in Saskatchewan to reduce traffic on roads that have been periodically shut due to heavy smoke. And on Monday, Claude Resources became the latest mining firm to pull the plug, indefinitely suspending work at its gold mine in the same province due to a wildfire only 8 kilometers south.
Some businesses in Vancouver have lost thousands of dollars in wasted permit fees due to enforced cancellations of summer fireworks festivals. Raymond Greenwood, who runs a business called Mr. Fireworks, said he has had to cancel four fireworks performances in the past week. Such dry conditions so early in the summer are unprecedented, Greenwood said. “Never, ever in 30 years have we seen it like this,” he added.
Climate change is only increasing the toll from wildfires. A B.C. Wildfire Management Branch discussion paper warned that with a 4˚C temperature increase by 2080, the size of the average B.C. wildfire will more than double to about 190 square km. Fire season length and fire frequency will grow by 30%; fire severity will increase by 40% in spring, 95% in summer, and 30% in fall; and the province’s fire-free area will shrink by 39%.
The Canadian insurance industry is already factoring wildfire growth into its forecasts, including it in the expected increase in climate-induced extreme weather events. “The new norm is on or around a billion dollars [U.S.$774 million] in these severe weather events,” said Steve Kee, the Insurance Bureau of Canada’s director of media and digital communications.
43% of all large wildfires over the past decade in Alberta were caused by humans, either by accident or deliberate arson. The careless toss of a cigarette butt can spark a fire costing millions of dollars in damage and putting firefighters’ lives at risk. Open burning and campfires are banned across B.C., where there was 956 fires from April 1 to July 10 - more than double the 448 wildfires reported in the same time period in 2014. Failure to abide by B.C.’s Wildfire Act can result in a $267 fine, an administrative penalty of about $7,740 or, if convicted in court, a fine of up to $77,400 and/or one year in jail.
Lightning-caused fires cannot be prevented, but warnings about human-caused fires should be scaled-up. And the impact of many fires can be limited by clearing out any timber within a mile or so of at-risk communities. “Landscape fire management” techniques like widening roads and selective tree-cutting to make barrier gaps also need to be expanded widely.
This is, literally, Canada’s trial by fire.
