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Charred pine trees in Kootenay National Park in British Columbia (symbolic image).
© alimdi/Arterra/Imago
After an extraordinary wildfire season in Canada, numerous fires are still smoldering underground.
This gives rise to fears of the worst for the new season.
There are zombie fires burning underground, even under the snow.
The remnants of the most extraordinary wildfire season in recent Canadian history are still smoldering at levels experts say are unprecedented.
According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center, the warm and dry winter, particularly in western Canada, has caused more than 150 fires to break out in British Columbia and Alberta.
It is common for such fires - so-called holdover or zombie fires - to smoke and smolder throughout the cold months, but not to this extent.
"We've seen something like this before, but never on this scale," said Michael Flannigan, a wildfire expert and professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia.
“I have been monitoring fires in Canada and abroad since the late 1970s.
I’ve never seen anything like it.”
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Winter fires burn underground
These winter fires burn underground and often consume peat - thick layers of compacted organic material, including peat moss.
Plumes of smoke even come out from under fields of snow.
The vast majority of fires are considered "under control" by Canadian authorities, but experts fear the fires could spread as spring arrives and winds increase.
“The borders are thousands of kilometers long.
[Firefighters] haven’t put out all the hot spots yet,” Flannigan said.
“These fires can grow.” The scale of these ongoing fires is a testament to last year's super-sized wildfire season, which broke records for the area of Canadian forests burned and produced huge plumes of smoke that filled the skies of the Midwest and East Coast darkened in the summer and caused some of the worst air quality in the world in major American cities.
According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center, the area burned, at around 45 million hectares, is more than double the previous record in any year since 1983. The fires have also forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
These Canadian fires are part of a growing number of wildfires across North America and other parts of the world caused by a warming climate, particularly as a result of humans burning fossil fuels.
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“Climate warming and drought are leading to these very large fires, which then encourage this overwintering fire activity,” Jennifer Baltzer, a biology professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, told the
Toronto Star
.
Canada has vast areas of boreal forests with so many trees that Canada accounts for about 10 percent of all forests in the world.
Last year alone, fires destroyed about 4 percent of Canada's forests.
A spokesman for British Columbia's Forestry Ministry said in a statement that the extent of the winter fires "is understandable given the widespread fire activity and drought conditions last year."
The 90 remaining fires in the province are all under control, which means that the suppression measures have ensured that the fires cannot currently spread any further.
“The BC Wildfire Service is monitoring these fires in the event that activity flares up and further action is required,” the statement said.
Winter fires burn through peat and release emissions
As the winter remnants of these fires now burn through carbon-rich peat, they continue to release emissions that warm the atmosphere.
Peat fires have been shown to occur in other parts of the world, e.g.
B. in Indonesia, release enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the air.
Forest fire in British Columbia (symbolic image).
© Xinhua/Imago
The winter fires are being fueled by ongoing drought across much of western Canada.
The country's drought monitor shows British Columbia and Alberta - where most of the zombie fires are burning - experiencing extreme drought, and as of late January, 70 per cent of Canada was classified as "abnormally dry."
Further warm and dry conditions brought on by the El Niño weather pattern have increased fears about the upcoming summer.
Federal Emergency Management Minister Harjit Sajjan warned this week that Canadians need to be prepared for the worst.
“Early reports suggest this year’s wildfire season could be worse than last,” Sajjan told reporters in Ottawa.
The Alberta government has already declared wildfire season has begun - ahead of the traditional start in March - and the province's forestry and parks minister is seeking funding to hire 100 additional firefighters.
“The die is cast for a very active spring,” Flannigan said.
To the author
Joshua Partlow
is a national reporter at The Washington Post.
He previously served as bureau chief in Mexico City, Kabul, Rio de Janeiro and as a correspondent in Baghdad.
This article was first published in English on February 24, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.