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Drivers and Impacts of the Record-Breaking 2023 Wildfire Season in Canada.

Piyush JainQuinn E BarberStephen W TaylorEllen WhitmanDante Castellanos AcunaYan BoulangerRaphaël D ChavardèsJack ChenPeter EnglefieldMike FlanniganMartin P GirardinChelene C HanesJohn LittleKimberly MorrisonRob S SkakunDaniel K ThompsonXianli WangMarc-André Parisien
Published in: Nature communications (2024)
The 2023 wildfire season in Canada was unprecedented in its scale and intensity, spanning from mid-April to late October and across much of the forested regions of Canada. Here, we summarize the main causes and impacts of this exceptional season. The record-breaking total area burned (~15 Mha) can be attributed to several environmental factors that converged early in the season: early snowmelt, multiannual drought conditions in western Canada, and the rapid transition to drought in eastern Canada. Anthropogenic climate change enabled sustained extreme fire weather conditions, as the mean May-October temperature over Canada in 2023 was 2.2 °C warmer than the 1991-2020 average. The impacts were profound with more than 200 communities evacuated, millions exposed to hazardous air quality from smoke, and unmatched demands on fire-fighting resources. The 2023 wildfire season in Canada not only set new records, but highlights the increasing challenges posed by wildfires in Canada.
Keyphrases
  • climate change
  • risk assessment
  • intellectual disability
  • heat stress