Pace and scale of Canadian wildfires could reshape the landscape, experts say
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A 2020 study Parisien co-wrote in Nature found that decades of fire suppression to protect lives and homes in parts of Canada had increased wildfire risk and the potential severity of blazes.
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For centuries, people allowed forests to burn, making fires less intense because they happened more frequently. For example, Parisien said, Indigenous people used to start controlled fires in the area now known as Wood Buffalo National Park in the early spring, when the snow made burning less risky. This created patches of land that were kept open, encouraging bison to graze and berries to grow. Now the place is more of a thick, coniferous forest that could burn at high intensity.
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'I used to think, 'Oh my God, the trees are gone, it's so bad,'' he said. 'But I've changed my mind. Maybe in a lot of cases it's not so bad.'
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In the early 20th century, as people began to settle and build deeper in the forests, fires were more often suppressed.
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'You have to protect the people by putting out the fires,' said Parisien. 'But putting out the fires today may leave issues tomorrow.'
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Still, researchers acknowledge we can't just go back to how things were.
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'We're moving to a place that has no historical analogue,' said Mike Flannigan, the science director of the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science at the University of Alberta. 'We're in new territory, uncharted territory,' as climate change has exacerbated wildfires' pace and scale.
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This photo provided by the Manitoba government shows wildfires in Wanless, Manitoba, Canada on May 29. Public Safety Canada said the 2025 wildfire season is on track to the second-largest on record.The fires are burning as Canada will host the Group of Seven Summit on Monday in Calgary, Alberta. It will not feature a specific session on climate change. The topic irritated President Donald Trump at the first G-7 meeting he attended in Italy. A senior Canadian government official said that the subject would be integrated into other sessions on wildfires and building the critical mineral supply chains needed for the energy transition.
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Those most affected by the blazes in Canada feel they have the least input in managing and preventing them.
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Although Indigenous people represent only about five per cent of Canada's population, 42 per cent of wildfire evacuations between 1980 and 2021 occurred in Indigenous communities, according to an article published last year in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.
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'Even though Indigenous people are the most impacted, we have very little power to change the situation,' said Amy Cardinal Christianson, a senior fire analyst of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative.
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She expressed frustration over permits needed to do intentional burning and said Indigenous communities aren't involved enough in budget decisions or decisions on fire suppression. She said that some fire managers have tended to dismiss their knowledge of the land as outdated. But they stand to lose the most from these catastrophic burns.
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'For us as Indigenous people, if we don't have culture, we don't have anything,' Christianson said. 'And our culture is connected to the land.'
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