VANCOUVER: Forest fire activity in Canada has been decreasing over the last 30 years, along with the rest of the world, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“Contrary to popular misperceptions, forest fire activity in Canada is on the decline over the last three decades, and that is consistent with global fire activity,” said Robert P. Murphy, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute and author of Trends in Canadian Forest Fires, 1959-2019.
The study finds that over the six decades of reliable government data from 1959-2019, the entire period shows a positive trend in the annual number of fires and total hectares burned.
However, the first half of this period shows a sharp trend increase while the second half shows a trend decline. In fact, forest fire activity across the nation as a whole was significantly worse in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, having reached its peak and maximum area burned in 1989.
For example, in 1989, 12,015 number of fires burned some 7.6 million hectares, compared to 4,062 fires burning 1.8 million hectares in 2019.
The six worst years of forest fires in Canada, measured in terms of total area burned, all occurred before the year 2000.
On a regional basis, however, the study does show that British Columbia and the Northwest Territories have experienced record-high fire activity in more recent years.
“If we look only at British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, then recent fire activity
really has been unprecedented (during our data period, 1959–2019) and the narrative of increasingly worse fires is correct.
Moreover, Alberta’s forest fire loss in 2019 was the second-highest on record (with the worst year still being 1981), so this too is arguably consistent with the alarmist narrative.
However, these are exceptions to the general pattern. In contrast to the experience in British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories, we see the opposite in Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland & Labrador: in each of these provinces, peak fire activity occurred several decades ago, while recent activity has been much less.
Meanwhile, in Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan, there have been relatively steady levels of forest fire activity over our data period.
This combination of outcomes explains why the press can feature stories that accurately portray the situation in some Canadian jurisdictions, even though the narrative does not fit the historical facts at the national level,” Murphy said.
“It is wrong to say that forest fire activity is on the rise in Canada, as the last 30 years will tell us,” Murphy said. “Though there are important regional differences to recognize and better understand.” (GLOBE NEWSWIRE)
Ottawa: The Canadian Government says that n 2018, there were more than 7,000 forest fires in Canada, burning almost 2.3 million ha of forest, with both of these numbers close to twenty-year averages.
“Though the national totals are close to average, in 2018, many fires occurred in places where large fires are unusual, including Vancouver Island, the Manitoba Interlake region, and Parry Sound, Ontario,” the government says on its website.