Area Of Forests Burned So Far In 2025 In Canada Exceeds Any Annual Total Except For Record-Smashing 2023
Wildfires across Canada are devouring land at a pace unseen in any year other than the historic 2023 season. With more than 7.8 million acres (3.15 million hectares) burned, according to Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre data, the season has already raced past the annual average, even when including the past two major fire seasons. The 25-year average for land burned is 7.3 million acres (2.95 million hectares). This year’s tally is poised to finish well above normal.
Dozens of active wildfires are burning from northern British Columbia and Alberta in a belt extending southeastward to Ontario. Many new blazes have started in recent weeks as a result of lightning, which is a common fire starter. The most intense fire activity has shifted its focus westward over recent days, partly a result of high heat in the country’s west and increased rainfall in central Canada.
The wildfires, mostly burning in dense boreal forest, continue to send thick smoke far from the source. Much of southwest and south-central Canada is under an air quality alert Tuesday, including the cities of Edmonton and Regina, where air quality reached Code Red levels in the morning.
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Canada has experienced warming at least two times faster than the rest of the globe. Traced to human-caused climate change, warmer temperatures are leading to less snow, shorter and milder winters and earlier onset of the summertime conditions that foster fires. Experts have warned that this year may echo the unprecedented destruction of 2023. When fires that season scorched through 42.7 million acres (17.3 million hectares), it outdid the previous top year by more than eight times the average.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/06/10/canada-wildfires-land-burned-maps-smoke/