Living with Wildfires: Inwards and Outwards
This is our second guest post by Ann Borda, who is an associate of Climate Museum UK and Honorary Research Associate at UCL. She is currently residing in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Just over two months from my first blogpost on Living with Wildfires in June and who could possibly imagine that a more challenging narrative of climate crisis continues to unfold?
July 2023 became the hottest month in the global temperature record since 1880. Canadian wildfire statistics rose with the hot dry temperatures of July and then again in August. At the time of writing (the week of September 4th), the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) reported that there were more than 1,000 fires burning across Canada, with 697 out of control.
Nearly an accumulation of 15 million hectares or 35 million acres have now burned, an area nearly the land mass of a country the size of Nepal or Bangladesh.
These statistics starkly underline that the Canadian wildfire season of 2023 has been the largest and most devastating on record for the country.
“Until we stop burning fossil fuels, the number of wildfires will continue to increase, burning larger areas for longer periods of time.” (Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London, Guardian 22 Aug).
Climate change has greatly increased the flammability of fuel for wildfires such as dry grass and groundcover, which means that even a single spark, regardless of its source (lightning strikes, smouldering campfires, off road vehicles, etc.), can rapidly turn a forested area into a blazing inferno.
Measuring the risk of fire danger is a relative index of how easy it is to ignite vegetation, how difficult a fire may be to control, and how much damage a fire may do. Canada’s national temperature record for May and June increased by 0.8C (1.4F), which, along with low humidity, dry wind, minimal rainfall and less snow cover, helped to rapidly spread fires across Canada.
But Canada is not the only country impacted by dry hot conditions, the US, China, and Greece were among those similarly impacted by tinderbox conditions of forests and vegetation to devastating proportions. In early August 2023, a series of wildfires broke out in the US state of Hawaii, largely on the island of Maui, with wind-driven fires prompting evacuations and causing widespread damage in the town of Lāhainā.
My home province of British Columbia (in western Canada) is another visible example of these unprecedented statistics with 415 active wildfires at the start of September, according to the official BC Wildfire Service.
This map shows the outline of the province of British Columbia with 415 active wildfires as dots. Red dots show out of control wildfires. The Blue dot shows the location of the largest city of Vancouver. What this map shows is just how close these fires are to edges of cities and towns, like the massive McDougall Creek wildfire in West Kelowna in the interior of the province (Central Okanagan region).
The McDougall Creek wildfire rapidly spread in mid-August and emergency crews in the region estimate that nearly 200 homes and structures have been lost or damaged in the area because of it. Thousands have been evacuated from their homes and from affected zones.
Although wildfires are not uncommon for First Nations peoples on their lands, these fires have become so widespread and volatile across the country that more people are experiencing them and without the means to protect themselves. In Canada, 5% of the population identifies as Indigenous — First Nation, Métis or Inuit — with a smaller percentage living in predominantly Indigenous communities. Yet more than 42% of wildfire evacuations have been from communities that are more than half Indigenous.
Wildfire has destroyed trappers’ cabins, trap lines, hunting and fishing grounds, burial grounds, archaeological sites, traditional trails and rare diamond willow used for ceremonial smudging. Not least native plants like wild berry stocks, and wildlife, including beaver, wolves, moose and elk, have been displaced or lost to the fires.
“We’re very close to the animals, and it’s very heartbreaking to know that not only is their forest gone, but that many animals have lost their lives…” Timber Bigfoot, an Indigenous land and environment manager for Prophet River First Nation (CBC News– June 29,2023).
Particularly vulnerable animals are most impacted by a single event like a wildfire because they are often already a small population at risk. Woodland caribou or spotted owl depend on mature and old-growth forests, and they may decline further in numbers as these habitats are affected. Food sources, such as lichen, burn rapidly and may also be slow to recover.
To build resilience in wildfire devastated areas, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF)-Canada has been supporting the stewardship efforts of the First Nations Secwepemcúl’ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society by planting a diverse variety of trees, such as hardwoods, for example, in the reforesting of Elephant Hill, the site of one of the province’s worst recorded wildfires.
Smoke from ongoing Canadian wildfires has also continued to impact health beyond the physical sites of wildfire. Drifting smoke with high concentrations of fine particulate matter has triggered record numbers of unhealthy and hazardous air quality days within Canada around populous cities of Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto among others, but also impacting the bordering US cities of New York and Chicago. Cumulative smoke exposure per person in the US through mid-2023 is the highest since 2006, and may be reversing decades of pollution reduction progress following the Clean Air Act of 1970.
The above image illustrates how Wildfire Smoke Threatens to Wipe Out Decades of Air Pollution Progress.
Many of us are witnesses to the climate crisis, not only wildfires, but droughts, flooding, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events. These are markers of drastic and devastating environmental change. This the challenge of our generation and we need urgently to action more sustainable futures as individuals, communities, and governments.
We are also deeply connected to the environment, and climate anxiety and ecological grief can impact our mental health, and escalate anxiety about how we can address something as overwhelming as a rapidly warming climate. Working for Climate justice is one way forward as Indigenous communities and traditional knowledge systems are critical to developing solutions to the Earth crisis. There are also many mindful resources we can turn to. I recommend the University of British Columbia Climate Hub’s climate wellbeing resource toolkit with links to diverse knowledge sources and expert communities. Needless to say, we can be better supported to address extreme weather if we work together. More to come in the next blogpost — watch this space!
