Raging wildfires: You can run, but you can’t hide

Cool Tips for a Hot Planet

Several years ago, friends of mine sold their home in Kelowna and moved to the coast. They’d been evacuated one too many times because of nearby wildfires.

My thought at the time: So glad I don’t live in B.C.

This year we’ve seen that you can run, but you can’t hide. By the end of June, 2023 had already been declared the worst wildfire season on record in Canada, with over eight million hectares burned. Fires raged in every province and one territory, and thousands had been evacuated.

On June 7, I captured a photo of the sun: a red orb suspended in an orange-grey haze. That day the local health unit warned our air quality had reached the “high risk” level. The school board advised schools to keep kids inside. The next day a few of my intrepid fellow members of the Kawartha Cycling Club rode in the haze – wearing N95 masks.

Also on June 7, the Blue Jays opted to close the stadium dome for their game because of the smoke. Major league games were postponed in New York and Philadelphia for the same reason.

Near the end of June, Toronto for a time topped an international list of cities with the worst air quality in the world. Others that made the top 10: Chicago, Detroit, New York City – thanks to that added Canadian smoke. And our smoke wafted on the jet stream to Europe.

Hey friends – it’s not all our fault! But it does show that there are no borders when it comes to climate catastrophes.

Call your local Conservative MP’s office and you might hear, as I did, “It’s people starting the fires.” In fact, research shows half of such fires are ignited by lightning, and there’s more lightning because of global heating, according to Canadian researcher and long-time wildland fire expert Mike Flannigan. As any good Scout or Guide knows, fires start and spread easier with dry kindling. This year’s hotter, drier spring provided a lot of that, said Dave Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada.

Flannigan told CTV the number of human-caused fires has been dropping, thanks in part to fire prevention education. Meanwhile the area burned in Canada has doubled since the early 1970s because of the increase in lightning fires. And because of climate change.

While forest fires may have had the most impact on us this year, warmer temperatures also had an earlier effect in our capital. For the first time since it opened more than 50 years ago, the Rideau Canal Skateway stayed closed, thanks to unstable ice.

When opposition leaders tried to get our provincial premier to admit there was a link between climate change and our wild wildfire season, he demurred. It doesn’t fit with his actions, like cancelling our cap-and-trade system and hundreds of renewable energy projects when he took power in 2018, or his current support for expanding natural gas electricity generation.

But Flannigan can read the smoke signals, and he says the message is clear. We need to address climate change head on: stop using coal, oil and gas as soon as possible and shift to renewable energy to reduce emissions and global heating.

Because these days, everyone can’t just pull up stakes and move. Where would we go?