Calgary is covered under thick smoke, due to 124 active wildfires in the province. The sky looks yellow, and the sun is like an orange ball. The strong northwesterly winds have brought the smoke to the city from the wildfires burning in northern Alberta. The skyline of the city looks hazy even from SAIT campus across the river from downtown.
According to Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard, the number for current year wildfires in Alberta stands at 928, while the active wildfires are just a shy of a quarter-hundred at 124. Wildfires have consumed at lot already by swallowing big chunks of the forested area of Alberta, British Columbia. The cause for these wildfires consists of natural phenomenon like lightning to human activities like campfires, off-road vehicles, power lines, arson, industrial activities. In Alberta majority of wildfires are caused by humans. For instance, in 2020, 88 per cent of wildfires in the province were caused by the humans. The story is a little different for a British Columbia as majority of the wildfires in the Pacific Province are caused due to lightning strikes. Although natural phenomenon and human activity does not make up for hundred percent of the numbers, as many wildfires’ causes goes undetermined.
Looking at the data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, 34 per cent of the wildfires so far were from the lightning, human activities make up 40 per cent of the share, while 26 per cent are still undetermined. Lightning is said to be the reason for almost half of the fires in Quebec at 47 per cent, for Alberta it is 22 per cent and 37 per cent of the fires in B.C. are due to the lightning strikes.
Government of Canada classifies the wildfires into three types, Crown fires, Surface fires and Ground fires, Crown fires being the most dangerous type of fire and Surface fires being the easiest one to put off and least dangerous. According to Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, there have been 5008 fires this year across Canada, out of 1048 are active and 675 categorized out of control, the fires have burnt 12.5 million hectares of land so far. British Columbia holds the number of most active wildfires at 353, Northwest Territories comes at second spot with 175 active fires. According to federal government, since 1990, on average 2.5 million hectares of land is burnt down by the fires every year, this year however much more than the average has already burnt, 2023 is on the verge to become one of the worst, if not the worst year for wildfires.
Climate change cannot be ignored in the case of wildfires, the weather plays an important role in the nature of wildfires, duration of fires. If the weather is hot and dry, it means the forests are at a greater risk of burning. Since early 1950’s the annual average temperatures have increased by 1.9 C˚. Earth saw its hottest day ever this year on 4th July, when the global average temperature reached 17.1 C˚, beating August 2016’s record of 16.9 C˚. Meanwhile, annual average precipitation has also increased in the past 75 years. This may sound balancing to the already risen temperatures, but the impact of each phenomenon varies by the time of their occurrence, region, this means extreme precipitation in short periods of time along with dry spells can lead to both flooding and drought situations.
Wildfire smoke is consists of various air pollutants that turn out to be harmful even at low levels. It contains fine particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and other volatile organic compounds. Wildfire smoke leaves several serious impacts on human health. Firstly, Wildfire smoke makes it difficult for your lungs to get oxygen into your bloodstream. Even for an average healthy human, the exposure to the smoke can be irritating to the respiratory system, which can lead to sore eyes, cough, and runny nose. Asthma patients are vulnerable group to the wildfires, Baljit Kaur, who is suffering from asthma from a young age says, “Wildfire smoke is a big concern for me and people like me, I struggle with cough, runny nose, wheezes and when it gets worse from bad it triggers asthma attack.” Recalling the smoke in mid-May she adds, “Middle of this year’s May was really bad for and I can say that people with lung problems must have struggled really bad too.”
Senior citizens are another group of vulnerable people to the wildfire smoke, Thana Khosa, a 66 year old Calgarian says, “Every year wildfires affects us all but this year it was really bad and early as compared to last year. I was in my home for a couple days in mid-May when things looked quite messed up to be outside my home”. He also adds, “I hope it gets better in coming time, but predictions and news articles tells otherwise.”