Why is Canada experiencing so many forest fires?

Toronto — Wildfire season arrived in force in Western Canada, triggering evacuation orders and alerts in several cities in British Columbia and neighboring Alberta due to the danger of uncontrolled fires. According to the latest report from the British Columbia administration on the wildfire situation, seven evacuation orders and five alerts have been issued in the province since Friday, driving approximately 4,700 residents from their homes.

“The situation is evolving rapidly,” B.C. Emergency Management Minister Bowninn Ma warned Monday, as officials said there were 130 active wildfires, including 14 deemed out of control.

Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was the worst on record, with 6,551 fires burning nearly 46 million acres, from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces and the Far North. The impact on the environment, particularly on air quality, in Canada and the United States has been profound. As predicted2024 is shaping up to be another devastating wildfire season, and disaster and climate experts have a pretty good idea why.

Most of the fires currently ravaging Canada have been burning since the last fire season, after slowly smoldering under the snow cover over winter.

Scientists say these fires, sometimes called zombie fires, are a stark reminder of the impact of climate change. Studies have linked winter fires to persistent drought conditions amid the increasingly hotter and drier springs that Canada has experienced in recent years. Scientists say reduced precipitation and warmer winter temperatures mean fires can continue to burn in dense layers of vegetation beneath the snowpack.

Sonja Leverkus, an ecosystem scientist in British Columbia who also works as a firefighter, told CBS News on Monday that the northeast of the Canadian province is currently experiencing many wildfires “because we are in a severe drought for the third year in a row. “.

She said drought conditions were likely to make the situation worse before it got better.

Leverkus has been on the front lines fighting the fires in her hometown of Fort Nelson, where she, her teammates and their communities are currently under evacuation orders.

“Most of the current fires this week were 2023 wildfires that overwintered underground,” she said. “The spring is heavy, with low relative humidity, strong winds, heat and no precipitation. Hence forest fires.”

Wildfire expert Ben Boghean, commenting this week on the current fire threaten the community of Parker Lake in British Columbia, said Sunday that last year’s severe drought conditions allowed fires to spread at a dizzying pace this spring and that because of the below-normal snowpack, new fires are also breaking out easier.