As Canada grapples with a series of violent fires, a conspiracy theory is gaining momentum online, alleging the blazes were intentionally lit by environmentalists. The North American country is currently experiencing the largest fires in its history at this stage of the season, with more than three million hectares burned and tens of thousands evacuated.
In Quebec, some wonder how all the fires could have broken out at the same time, suggesting in a video viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook, that a "terrorist attack" would be at the origin.
"I bet that a good part of the forest fires were started by green terrorists to give a boost to their climate change campaign," populist Maxime Bernier, a former Canadian foreign minister turned leader of a far-right party, also said in a tweet.
It's not climate change. It's more likely green terrorism.
'Police in NS say some fires deliberately set'@artcgreen @WSOnlineNews https://t.co/ihytmjSg98
— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) June 6, 2023
The same goes for the social network TikTok, where a video viewed nearly 20,000 times argues that the fires in Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada, were started "voluntarily to promote a program to fight climate change". An online article even claims that 90% of the blazes in the west of the country, ravaged by fires since early May, are "man-made" and lit by "ecoterrorists".
In addition, some argue that the Canadian government would intentionally start wildfires to promote its climate policies or force citizens to take refuge in cities where it will be easier to impose "climate lockdowns."
Almost always accidents
Obviously, there is no evidence to support these theories. "Many are of human origin, but they are almost always accidents," says Karine Pelletier of the Société québécoise de protection des forêts contre le feu (Sopfeu), adding that recent lightning strikes are the cause of many fires in the French-speaking province but that the origin of the others remains to be determined.
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For its part, the agency in charge of fires in Alberta recalls that a fire is always considered of human origin unless lightning is involved. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's arson, according to Alberta Wildfire spokeswoman Melissa Story. "It can be a variety of causes, such as agriculture, forestry, power lines, oil and gas, railways or residential fires," she says.
"Human-caused fires can be accidental, intentional or indeterminate," says Heather Fairbairn of the Nova Scotia agency, where the cause of the fires remains unclear. But "we certainly see the effects of climate change, which increase the risk of fire," she said.
Not the first time
This isn't the first time conspiracy theorists have relied on devastating fire seasons to make these accusations. During the "black summer" of 2020 in Australia, Internet users had based, wrongly, on statistics from arson attacks of a previous year to justify the bushfires and minimize the effects of global warming.
The following year, in California, arsonists were indeed at the origin of several forest fires, but nothing could prove that they defended the climate cause, as claimed by some netizens.
For Chris Russill of Carleton University, the theory of ecoterrorism was inspired by evidence, but "its importance or significance was later exaggerated." This is the case in Canada, where Internet users rely on official reports of suspicious fires to base their theories about unrelated events and places.
