Canada’s 2023 wildfires were a top global carbon emitter

The wildfires that burned across the country last year, and made 2023 Canada’s worst wildfire season on record, produced more carbon emissions in six months than the burning of fossil fuels in all but three countries over a year, according to a study published in Nature last week.

The fires were extraordinary in both size and length of time burning—according to the study, “more than seven times the average annual area burned compared to the previous four decades.”

The only countries to emit more greenhouse gasses (GHG) through fossil fuel burning were the US, China, and India—the usual top three when looking at emissions. Although these fires are directly related to human-caused climate change, including from fossil fuels, the damage from the fires could further speed up the change in weather patterns, according to the study.

These fires have also affected the ability of Canada’s forests to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, further driving the rate of emissions from a country heating up at twice the global rate. The study calls into question how much carbon these forests will be able to absorb in the future—and whether emissions targets need to be adjusted as a result.

As a party to the Paris Agreement, Canada is obligated to track the entirety of its GHG emission. Our forests’ ability to act as a carbon sink is a large factor in the measurement of emissions each year—if fires continue to affect this ability, according to the study, the federal government will have to limit human-caused emissions even further to meet the targets of the agreement.

Main driver of the fires

The study points to another released earlier this month by Nature, looking at the main driver of last year’s wildfires. Overall, it was the widespread hot, dry weather—last year was the warmest and driest year in the country since 1980. The weather conditions were an anomaly at the time, but by 2050, according to most climate projections, it will be the norm.

On Vancouver Island, wildfires don’t typically occur at the frequency or magnitude of places like the BC Interior. But recent fires over the last two years—including this summer’s Old Man Lake in Sooke—prove we’re not immune. Last year, the Cameron Bluffs fire caused chaos on Highway 4, a main connector highway for the East and West Island. Long after the fire was under control, damage to the environment and infrastructure led to closures and bottleneck traffic—and caused economic damage to Tofino’s tourism industry.

Two studies released in April showed projections for the CRD and Nanaimo have shown that in the coming decades, both regions can expect hotter and drier summers, warmer nights, warmer winter temperatures with less snowpack, and more extreme heatwaves. While the winter and spring seasons are anticipated to be wetter, the projections for future summers point to the exact factors laid out as wildfire drivers.

Low snowpacks and overwinter fires

Some factors that contribute to more wildfires in the summer can occur over the winter—sometimes years prior. Low snowpacks in the Island’s alpine regions can contribute year over year to the severity of droughts. Although these low snowpacks spare Island communities from flooding risks, they don’t leave behind ground moisture that could mitigate the spread of fire.

Fires also have the potential to reignite after smouldering below the surface throughout the winter. These quiet blazes, known as holdover fires, have led forests to burn in the same place for multiple summers. This was the case with the Patry Creek fire—one of the largest wildfires in Western Canada this summer—where the fire re-emerged in the same area that was first ignited by lightning in July 2023.

This is less of a concern for the Island than it is for boreal forests, where peat soil encourages these below-surface burns. But even the area across the Georgia Strait is not immune to the effects of fire on the Mainland.

Air Quality concerns

Smoke from nearby fires can cause a spate of respiratory problems—with both short and long-term effects on health—for people on the Island and affect weather patterns in the region.

“Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture of particles, gasses and vapour containing hundreds of chemicals,” according to the BC government website. “Fine particulates are especially dangerous as they can reach deep into our lungs and bloodstream.”

The poor air quality sticks around too. In past years, Canada had the cleanest air in North America. After last year’s wildfires the opposite was true, with 13 of North America’s  most polluted cities situated in Canada.

Both the wildfires currently burning on the Island are under control. But as our understanding of the long-term effects of these fires continues to grow, we may notice the damage lingering.