Canada is committed to doing more to prevent and control devastating wildfires, federal officials said Tuesday as the resulting smoke sparks formal complaints and calls for action from U.S. lawmakers.
But Corey Hogan, parliamentary secretary to the federal energy and natural resources minister, added the growing spread of blazes and smoke beyond Canada’s borders underscores the need for an international fight against climate change that scientists say is fueling more destructive wildfire seasons.
“There’s no people that want to do more about wildfires than Canadians,” Hogan told reporters in Calgary after announcing $45.7 million in funding for wildfire prevention and risk assessment research projects. “We’ve seen this in the smoke that clogs our cities, we’ve seen this in our communities that are evacuated.
“But I think this also underlines the international challenges that are brought on by climate change. The consequences do not rest in one jurisdiction, which is why we need to globally tackle this problem, and it’s going to require the work of people across the globe to make the world safer again.”
A group of Republican state lawmakers from Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota last week filed a formal complaint against Canada to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and the International Joint Commission, a binational organization that resolves disputes on shared water and air quality.
The Republican lawmakers called for an investigation of Canada’s wildfire management practices and for potential remedies under international law.
Republican politicians at other levels of government have also been voicing concerns about Canada’s wildfires.
Last month, Michigan Rep. John James sent a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney saying his constituents are choking on toxic wildfire smoke, after another group of Republican members of Congress expressed similar concerns to Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman earlier in July.
Canada is seeing its second-worst wildfire season on record, with fires burning in a majority of provinces across the country and spreading firefighting resources thin.
The research funding announced Tuesday will go toward 20 research projects aimed at strengthening wildfire risk assessments and improving mitigation and prevention measures, the government said.
Those projects will be funded through Ottawa’s Build and Mobilize Foundational Wildland Fire Knowledge program.
Another 10 Indigenous-led projects will also receive funding through the Supporting and Mobilizing Indigenous Fire Knowledge grant program, which seeks to build Indigenous forest management and community protection practices into Canada’s wildfire prevention strategies.
“This is about building a body of knowledge for everybody and applying that knowledge specifically to resist wildfires in those communities most impacted,” Hogan said.
The $45.7 million total is drawn from previously-announced funding for those two research grant programs.
Hogan said some of the work done by the projects receiving funding “will bear fruit nearly immediately” on the current wildfire situation by informing where resources should be better allocated. Most of the work will be forward-looking and help prepare for future seasons, he acknowledged.
“There will be some short-term benefits, but it will be really longer term that you’ll see the most significant benefits,” he said.
The announcement itself was short on details on what specific research will be funded, but Hogan pointed to two Indigenous-led projects in Alberta as examples.
One project led by the Swan River First Nation is testing a “wildfire risk assessment and scenario exploration tool” that will help incorporate wildfire risk into land management policies and development planning.
Another project, the Blood Tribe Fire Guardianship Program, aims to develop a network of Indigenous youth and community members to “integrate cultural burning, habitat restoration, and intergenerational knowledge transfer” into community fire mitigation strategies.
The latest figures posted by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) suggest the fires this year have torn through 74,000 square kilometres, an area larger than the size of New Brunswick.
That surpasses the next worst season in 1989 and is about half the area burned during the record-setting 2023 season, according to a federal database of wildfire seasons dating back to 1972.
Last year’s fires were also devastating, including the one that nearly destroyed the Alberta town of Jasper.
Natural Resources Canada has estimated that fire suppression costs could double by 2040 as the country faces ever-worsening wildfire seasons, Hogan said.
“Everyone is seized with wildfires right now” across all levels of government as the consequences continue to grow, he added.
“It’s incumbent on governments across all levels to do what they can to both avoid these things happening in the first place and respond to them as rapidly as possible.”
The CIFFC’s current situation report said there were 719 active fires burning in Canada as of Tuesday, with 165 of them classified as out of control.
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said in a statement last week that Canada’s recent wildfires offer a “stark reminder” of the countries’ shared challenges, noting the U.S. and Canada have “a long history” of supporting one another in times of crisis.
“Canadians stood with us during the tragic California wildfires earlier this year, and we are committed to standing with Canada now,” he said.
Wildfires burning across multiple American states, including California, have sent smoke into nearby communities and into Canada in recent years.
—with files from the Canadian Press