Smoke Signals: What Canada’s Wildfires Are Really Telling us
In the summer of 2025, the sky turned orange again.
Air quality alerts blanketed major cities across the country. Entire communities packed up their homes and evacuated under a blood-red sun. It wasn’t just Alberta this time - Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia… the flames didn’t care about borders. Across Canada, millions watched their phones ping with evacuation orders while smoke settled into their lungs, their homes, their futures.
We’re witnessing the most evident signs yet that climate change is no longer a distant threat - it’s here, now, and impossible to ignore. In a recent blog post, I wrote about Mark Carney’s book ‘Value(s)’ and how he connects the climate crisis to broader failures in leadership and policy - you can read that blog post HERE.
We’ve normalized the idea of “wildfire season” as if it were just another quirky Canadian tradition, but it’s not. It’s a crisis. One that has been decades in the making - and it’s being fueled by climate change, political indifference, and a cultural unwillingness to treat this as the emergency it is.
We are literally on fire. And somehow, we still aren’t acting like it.
A Country on Fire - Literally
If you're still not convinced this is a national crisis, here’s what 2025 has looked like:
Over 7,000 wildfires reported across Canada (and we’re still ‘mid-season’).
More than 21 million hectares burned - yes, that’s millions - an area roughly the size of Belarus.
Air quality in major cities, from Vancouver to Toronto to Halifax, repeatedly surpassed hazardous levels.
Indigenous communities evacuated multiple times without proper support or recovery funding.
Healthcare systems are overwhelmed by respiratory issues, especially among children, the elderly, and people with chronic illnesses.
The smoke didn’t just stay in Canada. It drifted into the U.S., prompting the issuance of its own air quality alerts. Ironically, some American media used our fires as another opportunity to fan the flames of anti-Canada sentiment, painting us as weak on environmental issues while conveniently forgetting their fossil-fueled economy.
This isn’t just a natural disaster. It’s a warning - one we’ve been ignoring for far too long.
What’s Fueling the Flames?
We can’t chalk this up to bad luck or a freak weather pattern.
This is the outcome of predictable, preventable, and deeply human-made conditions:
1. Climate Change
Canada is warming at nearly twice the global average. That means hotter, drier summers and more extended periods of drought. Forests become tinderboxes. Lightning strikes and sparks from machinery ignite fires that spread in hours. Climate change doesn’t just start fires - it feeds them.
2. Outdated Forestry Management
Decades of fire suppression policies have left forests overgrown and prone to drought. Dead trees aren’t being cleared, and prescribed burns (which reduce fire risk by removing fuel) are underutilized or hindered by bureaucratic obstacles.
3. Increased Human Activity in Remote Areas
As development continues to expand into forested regions, so do roads, pipelines, and campsites. More people in fire-prone areas means a higher risk - and greater devastation when fires break out.
4. Political Delay and Denial
Canada continues to subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Emissions targets are missed or watered down. Climate policies are passed but not enforced. Meanwhile, we ask firefighters and Indigenous land defenders to hold the line with no meaningful support.
We’re not just playing with fire - we’re funding it.
Under-Prepared and Overwhelmed
Despite the damage wildfires cause, Canada still lacks a national wildfire strategy. Provinces and territories are primarily left to fend for themselves, which leads to:
Confusion over jurisdiction - who’s responsible when a fire crosses a provincial border?
Reactive funding, not proactive investment - money pours in only after disaster hits.
Under-supported Indigenous communities, forced to evacuate again and again, with no infrastructure or funding for recovery.
We are asking volunteers and underpaid firefighters to respond to what is now a permanent emergency. That’s not resilience - it’s negligence.
If fire season is now a permanent feature of Canadian life, why are we still acting like it’s a seasonal inconvenience?
The Long-Term Costs of Short-Term Thinking
Economic Costs
Infrastructure destroyed: roads, power lines, homes, entire communities.
Insurance payouts are climbing - if insurance is even still available in fire-prone areas.
Tourism revenue lost due to closures, evacuations, and smoke.
Environmental Costs
Forests that act as carbon sinks go up in smoke, literally turning into carbon emitters.
Wildlife and ecosystems destroyed beyond repair.
Air and water pollution that lingers long after the flames die out.
Human Costs
Respiratory issues, asthma, long-term lung damage.
Trauma, displacement, and grief - especially for kids and elders.
Entire communities uprooted, some of which may never fully rebuild.
And here’s the kicker: these costs are not evenly distributed.
Low-income communities, Indigenous nations, and rural Canadians are hit first and hardest. They often have fewer resources to prepare for or recover from disasters. But they’re also the ones being asked to bear the brunt of climate inaction.
Climate justice and social justice are inseparable.
A Just and Resilient Path Forward
Wildfires are only going to get worse - unless we do something now. That “something” needs to be more than putting out fires as they happen. We need real, structural, systemic solutions.
Adaptation Measures
Community-Based Fire Management: Fund local fire response units year-round, not just seasonally.
Early Warning Systems: Expand access to real-time alerts, especially in remote communities.
Infrastructure Investment: Create firebreaks, build resilient housing, and fund permanent evacuation plans.
Mitigation Measures
Aggressive Emissions Reductions: Not just offsets - real cuts. Stop approving new oil and gas projects.
Honour Indigenous Land Stewardship: Indigenous knowledge has managed these lands for millennia. It’s time we stop pretending we know better.
End Fossil Fuel Subsidies: We cannot keep saying we’re in a climate emergency while bankrolling the industries causing it.
We don’t need another task force. We need action.
Why We’ve Normalized the Apocalypse
Here’s what haunts me: people are starting to accept this.
Evacuations, orange skies, staying inside for days - these are becoming routine. And that’s terrifying.
When we normalize crises, we make it harder to demand change. That’s why the language we use matters. This is not just “wildfire season.” This is not a “natural disaster.” It’s a climate disaster, made worse by political choices and policy failures.
We live in the age of consequences. And it’s time we started acting like it.
So… What Can You Do?
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But collective action starts with individual voices. Here’s how you can make noise:
Demand climate action from your representatives. Write letters. Show up. Ask them what they’re doing about fire resilience and emissions cuts.
Support Indigenous-led climate initiatives. These are often the most effective, community-rooted responses.
Talk about it. Share posts, speak with your family, and bring it up at the dinner table. Don’t let this crisis fade into the background.
Vote. Climate policy is always on the ballot, even when it’s not explicitly framed that way.
And yes, sometimes that means standing in opposition to powerful industries or political parties. But if the alternative is watching more of our country go up in flames, what exactly are we protecting by staying quiet?
Final Thoughts: Fire Is a Teacher - Are We Willing to Learn?
There’s something deeply symbolic about fire. It destroys, yes - but it also reveals. It shows us what we’ve neglected, what we’ve overbuilt, what we’ve taken for granted.
Canada is burning. And what we do next will determine whether we build something better or let the flames continue to spread.
So I’ll leave you with this:
If fire can reach every corner of this country, shouldn’t our response be just as widespread?