How do we sleep while are beds our burnin'?
How do we face the ongoing wildfires?
Let’s talk wildfires. For much of the world wildfires are nothing new, we are used to the cycle of fire seasons starting in the early summer, for Canada often June, and ending in the early fall, often September.
Is this year any different? Are the fires just burning close to major centres? Is the side-eye BC is giving Toronto warranted? Or is something worth noticing happening?
Well, in the words of Eric Church, it looks like we might be havin’ a record year. Not in number of fires, but possibly in the area burned, and almost certainly in the area burned by the end of May. Fires are making the news across the country and across the world, as Canada brings in support from across the world as well.
In general, over the last 50 years and especially in the last 30, the trend has been a decreasing number of fires themselves. This is likely due to several things. First, better fire management. For many years the practice was to prevent all fires, a repression style practice. However, this only works for so long because fire is a natural part of the ecosystem. Fire management programs have been reintroducing controlled or prescribed burns. These burns can be used to eliminate fuel that is building up to prevent a burn, or to prevent spread or control direction by eliminating fuel alongside an already existing fire. The Washington Post has a good pieces on prescribed burns here.
However, the areas burned in fires are not decreasing over the last several decades. It’s tempting to say there may be an increasing trend, however it is hard to say as there are several years with large spikes. You can see this data here. When looking at the number of fires per week, compared to the average of the last 10 years, it is clear this year is exceeding expectations. Often when a year starts hot heavy out of the gate, things do quiet down in the late summer and fall, so we will have to see, but we are starting out looking like a record year.
Are fires even bad?
Not inherently. Fires are necessary.
Some species of tree, including the quintessential Jack pine made famous by Tom Thompson, actually require fire to reproduce. Jack pine and lodgepole pine have serotinous cones. The cones are coated in a thick, waxy, sap which is melted away by fire, allowing the seeds to escape and plant in the ground. Black spruce is semi-serotinous and is aided by fire as well, but can, if other conditions are perfect, reproduce without it.
This is why the shift away from full fire suppression, to allowing fires and focusing on controlled burns is also important. Can you imagine a landscape of the famous Algonquin Provincial Park without a Jack pine? I don’t think Tom Thompson could have either.
This is why when you hear discussions of fire there are several categories you may hear: under control, being held, or not under control. Sometimes you’ll also see terms like being watched or observed. This is because sometimes, fires are left to burn. If they are not located near communities or resources, fires often are allowed to burn naturally, especially in the remote parts of Northern Ontario and Quebec. Being watched, or being held can apply to situations like this.
Okay, but what about climate change? Isn’t climate change causing more fires? Sorta.
Most fires in Canada are caused lightening and humans. Lightening causes about 50% of fires. Humans cause fires through a variety of means, but this doesn’t include prescribed burns, those are tracked in another category. Human caused fires can be campfires that aren’t extinguished properly, industrial activities, trains, or cigarettes.
Climate change isn’t directly starting the fires. The concern isn’t spontaneous combustion once we hit a certain ppm of carbon. The concerns are hotter overall temperatures creating drier environments, bigger storms with more lightening and more debris on the ground, and more challenging conditions to fight fires in. Research has been done which has tied these changes to increased fire seasons in British Columbia. The studied showed that over 95% of the probability for the observed maximum temperature anomalies was due to human factors, that seasons's high fire weather/behavior was made 2–4 times more likely, and that climate change increased the area burned by a factor of 7–11.
But so what?
The average person can’t do much about forest fires right? Right?
Well, that depends on how you think about “doing something” about forest fires. Can you help protect your health? Yes, you can. A study from California that was realeased in 2018 but based on the 2015 fire season found smoke exposure to be associated with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular ED visits for all adults, particularly for those over aged 65 years. Some compare living with wildfire smoke to living with a chainsmoker and a study in the US found that the number of people experiencing at least one day of unhealthy air from smoke increased 27-fold over the last decade. One of the more dangerous aspects of wildfire smoke is the particular matter. Quite literally, tiny bits of stuff, that you breath in. Thankfully, over the last few years, we are were introduced to these cool things that can help filter particulate matter from the air we breath. Masks. N95 masks can filter particles as fine as 0.3 micrometers, and the particles in smoke we are concerns about can be as big as 2.5 micrometers. That leaves a lot that a mask can filter out for you.
So we all just have to mask forever?
Well it’s not a bad thing, but there’s more we can do. If you know me, you know I love a scheme. One scheme I would love to see someone try is this: we have forest fire liability laws in Ontario, however they are not often used. I can only find one publicly accessible recorded case in Ontario where someone was taken to court over their role in a fire.
That matter, Ontario (Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry) v. Stanger, 2018 ONCJ 476, did result in the MNRF holding Mr. Stanger responsible for a fire on his property. However, other than just holding individuals responsible for fires they start on their property, there is lots that the Forest Fires Prevention Act can do.
Here is a list of fun (can you tell I’m a lawyer) sections of the Act:
21.1 (1) This section applies with respect to a fire that is caused by the conduct of a person, including any failure of the person to comply with a provision of this Act or the regulations, an order made under this Act or the conditions of a permit issued under this Act.
(2) A person referred to in subsection (1) is liable to the Crown or to any other person who carries out activities to control or extinguish the fire for the costs or expenses of any action taken by the Crown or the person to control or extinguish the fire and shall reimburse the Crown or the person for those costs or expenses.
(8) If a fire originates within 15 metres of the centre line of a railway track,
(a) the fire is presumed to have been caused by the conduct of railway operations for the purposes of subsection (1); and
(b) the railway corporation responsible for the railway operations conducted on the railway track at the time the fire originated is liable for any costs, expenses, loss or damages related to the fire and described in subsections (2) and (3) as though the railway corporation was a person whose conduct caused the fire.
28 No person shall smoke while walking or working in a forest area during the fire season.
35 (1) Every person who disobeys or refuses or neglects to carry out any of the provisions of this Act or the regulations or of any order made thereunder or any condition of any permit issued thereunder is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to,
(a) if the person is an individual, a fine of not more than $25,000 or to a term of imprisonment of not more than three months, or to both; and
(b) if the person is a corporation, a fine of not more than $500,000.
If I were a betting person, which I am not, I would bet that some of the major polluters and carbon producers have taken actions that have started fires. Whether it be an employee smoking on site, a spark from machinery or something else, I would bet fires could be traced to major industry. I wonder, if these provisions could be used as a form of climate litigation. Can we hold these industries accountable for the fires they start under s. 21.1 and ensure they repay the Crown the hundreds or thousands of dollars a fire response can cost? Can we ensure they are fined when they’re employees are found smoking in the forest during a fire season? Maybe, I would love to see someone try.
I would love to see increased enforcement of these provisions, $500,000 isn’t much to major multinational corporations, but for many mining and logging companies it is substantial. If we incentivized more strongly industry to be more careful, could we reduce the number of fires we are seeing? Could we replace them with careful prescribed burns to ensure that we can allow fire through the landscape while also protecting our homes and firefighters? I think so.