Living with Wildfires
This is a guest post by Ann Borda, a Climate Museum UK Associate and Honorary Research Associate, University College London, presently residing in Vancouver, B.C. Canada
Climate change is proving a very real and tangible challenge to the future of planetary health. The gradual warming of the planet is contributing to extreme atmospheric patterns, such as drier and hotter weather — and more frequent lightning strikes. The Canadian wildfires raging across the country from the province of Nova Scotia on the Atlantic coast to British Columbia bordering the Pacific are evidence of these phenomena, accelerated in some cases by human actions of campfires and arson. Unprecedented in its extent and pre-summer peak intensity, there have already been 5.4 million hectares of forest and wildland burned so far this season (as of 10 June) — surpassing combined annual totals (2016–2022).
Not just a matter of remote wilderness loss, the smoke from wildfires have caused highly dangerous air quality levels across large inhabited geographical areas, uncontained by jurisdiction. Wildfire smoke contains fine particulate matter, called PM2.5, which can fill the lungs and cause impactful health issues such as asthma and bronchitis. New York reached ‘code red’ in air quality levels from smoke travelling across from Canada, the worst air pollution since the 1960s. PM2.5 concentration in the City reached 15 times of the World Health Organization’s annual air quality guideline value.
My home province of British Columbia is a microcosm of the real and devastating effect of wildfires to multiple communities and wildlife, some species on the edge of extinction. First Nations are also disproportionately impacted by the effects of wildfires, often due to their remote and coastal locations and reliance on natural ecosystems. Over 100 wildland fires have been burning across Western Canada from early May 2023, forcing thousands of people in Alberta and British Columbia to evacuate.
Fires Scorch Western Canada (nasa.gov)
The recent Donnie Creek fire which ignited in June in the northeast of the province and has surpassed historical records as the largest individual wildfire in the province.
What is hopeful, however, in this extremely challenging scenario are the ways in which local firefighting communities are working with international firefighters with a unified and shared understanding of the intense and escalating impacts of climate change on planetary health. Critically, First Nations knowledge must also be understood in terms of living with wildfires and long-standing expertise in addressing forest management and wildfire suppression for thousands of years. Going forward, more needs to be acted on to integrate Indigenous firefighters and local traditional knowledge, along with appropriate government measures, to ensure that ecosystem legacies can flourish for generations now and into the future.
Ann Borda
See Ann’s second instalment here, which explores the Inside and the Outside of the situation.
