Politicians in Canada and the U.S. have been making calls for quick fixes, including no less a figure than U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened tariffs in retaliation for the smoke.<\/p>\n
But the quick fixes being suggested \u2014 more waterbombers, firebreaks and \u201craking\u201d the forest \u2014\u00a0would have little immediate effect, experts say.<\/p>\n
The best solution would have been to dramatically cut emissions years ago.\u00a0The harsh scientific reality is there\u2019s nothing we can do to stop wildfire smoke from blanketing cities for a few days every summer \u2014 and it\u2019s going to continue for decades to come.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re all going to need to buy air purifiers and masks and get used to it.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not to say there\u2019s nothing we can do. Here are the key things Canada must do to prepare.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why Canadians can\u2019t fight fires the American way<\/p>\n
The U.S. reaction has become as predictable as the fires themselves. When smoke blows south over the border, members of Congress, state governors and the president start complaining that Canada is somehow dropping the ball on forest fires.<\/p>\n
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Computer models have failed to predict a series of \u201cimpossible\u201d blazes \u2014 which means more places once thought of as safe need to start confronting <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Computer models have failed to predict a series of \u201cimpossible\u201d blazes \u2014 which means more places once thought of as safe need to start confronting <\/p>\n If we imitated the American approach \u2014 by actively managing forests by thinning trees, removing low-hanging limbs and getting rid of dead wood on the forest floor\u00a0\u2014 then there wouldn\u2019t be so many fires, and the fires that did ignite wouldn\u2019t grow so big. Or so the U.S. thinking goes.<\/p>\n This is nothing more than political rhetoric that misapplies American solutions to a Canadian problem with fundamentally different characteristics, says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-profit research organization.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that we can thin our way through the boreal forest boggles the mind,\u201d he said. \u201cThere aren\u2019t enough people in Canada to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n The boreal forest in Canada is an enormous and largely roadless expanse bigger than the entire European Union. In comparison, America\u2019s much smaller forests are criss-crossed by roads, making firefighter access much quicker and easier.<\/p>\n \u201cWestern U.S. forests have evolved for frequent low-level fires that burn out the undergrowth \u2014 usually every five to 30 years,\u201d he said. \u201cHistorically, before fire suppression, fires would burn through, and they wouldn\u2019t actually kill the trees. They\u2019d just kill smaller trees and clear out the brush.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe boreal forest is a fundamentally different beast,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an ecosystem designed to burn.\u201d<\/p>\n With smaller, more densely packed trees, the boreal is wetter and colder and doesn\u2019t burn anywhere near as often\u00a0\u2014 every 100 to 200 years on average, Hausfather said. But when fire does erupt, it\u2019s often much more intense, burning up into the canopy and levelling everything in its path.<\/p>\n In these \u201cstand replacement\u201d fires, he said, \u201cthe forest burns down, and new trees grow up to replace them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Clearing out the dead wood on the ground wouldn\u2019t prevent, or even slow, the canopy fires that sweep the boreal, said Hausfather.\u00a0<\/p>\n While that means U.S.-style forest-management techniques won\u2019t prevent smoke from filling the skies of distant cities, they could be used in a more focused way, he said.<\/p>\n Mechanical thinning and controlled burns (as well as building codes that require the use of fire-resistant materials) are the unsexy work that could make a real difference for First Nations in Ontario\u2019s north.<\/p>\n Former forest firefighter\u00a0Jen Beverly, a professor of environmental science at the University of Alberta, cautions that even\u00a0this limited use of \u201cfuel management\u201d\u00a0techniques\u00a0is\u00a0far-fetched.<\/p>\n Targeting a five-kilometre radius of forest around vulnerable communities across Canada would still require thinning 25 million hectares, according to a recent research paper she co-authored<\/a>. That\u2019s an area 37 times greater than the annual commercial logging harvest nationwide.<\/p>\n It would take 37 years to thin those forests, she said. \u00a0\u201cAnd by the end, you\u2019d have to go back and clear the areas you did in the first year.\u201d<\/p>\n If you scaled back your efforts to the FireSmart practices<\/a> of limbing trees in close proximity to communities, it would still require treating three million hectares of forest, which would cost an estimated $21 billion.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re barely scratching the surface of the problem,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re just looking at the most flammable fuels causing the most extreme exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre\u2019s coordination centre has been deploying wildfire fighters around the country for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n CIFFC<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s firefighting mission control<\/p>\n In the west end of Winnipeg, in a concrete building housing a Leon\u2019s and a Hakim Optical, there\u2019s a small office that operates like a mini NASA mission control.<\/p>\n With maps on large monitors lining the walls and a 24-hour duty officer answering a phone that won\u2019t stop ringing, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre\u2019s co-ordination centre has been deploying wildfire fighters around the country for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n As the nation\u2019s premiers gather in Charlottetown, calls for\u00a0an increased federal role in firefighting\u00a0have proliferated, led by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. But it\u2019s unclear what\u00a0Ottawa could\u00a0do that the CIFFC isn\u2019t already doing.<\/p>\n Like so many things in Canada, forest fires are a provincial concern. Each province and territory runs its own wildfire fighting force, with its own waterbombers and helicopters, pumps and hoses. Because traditionally the fire season started in the west and moved east as the summer wore on, the CIFFC was able to co-ordinate the sharing of firefighting resources between provinces. Idle Fire Rangers in Ontario shipped out to help with spring fires in British Columbia. Then in August, Albertan firefighters would come east to Quebec.<\/p>\n The CIFFC has international agreements and has brought in wildfire fighters from the U.S., Mexico and Australia to pitch in, but the need for more surge resources has become so acute that this spring, the federal government leased 10 firefighting aircraft \u2014 four water bombers and six helicopters \u2014 to put on standby, ready to backstop any province that had maxed out its resources. They\u2019ve already been deployed 22 times, according to a report\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0Parliament-focused Hill Times newspaper.<\/p>\n
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