Science·New
The 2026 wildfire season may get off to a relatively quiet start in Canada but lingering drought and a warm summer could tip the scales towards another severe year, experts say.
Country is coming off 3 consecutive severe fire years
Jordan Omstead · The Canadian Press
· Posted: Apr 10, 2026 12:05 PM EDT | Last Updated: 21 minutes ago
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A wildfire is seen burning about 16 kilometres south of Port Alberni, B.C., on Aug. 11, 2025, during Canada’s second-worst wildfire season on record. (Evan Hammond/The Canadian Press)
Wildfire season may get off to a relatively quiet start in Canada but lingering drought and a warm summer could tip the scales towards another severe year, experts say.
Wildfire expert Mike Flannigan says this year will be his “litmus test” for whether Canada’s wildfire seasons, already in uncharted territory and fuelled by human-caused climate change, have entered a “new reality.”
“My narrative used to be, there’ll be bad fire years and there’ll be quiet years. I’m now beginning to think at a national scale most years are going to be bad fire years,” said Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops,
This story was brought to Nouzie by RSS. The original post can be found on https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wildfire-outlook-canada-2026-9.7158913?cmp=rss
