As unprecedented fire year rages on, experts warn of longer, more destructive seasons

The wildfire records in Western Canada just keep falling. First, this spring was the most destructive in Alberta's history in terms of area burned. Now, it's the province's most destructive year on record, with more than 1.7 million hectares blackened and charred by nearly 900 fires. 

Just two weeks ago, British Columbia blazed past its annual record for area scorched. Right now, the biggest of the nearly 500 fires raging across the landscape has burned an area larger than Prince Edward Island, breaking yet another record for the size of a single fire. 

Mike Flannigan, a fire science expert at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., describes this year as "uncharted territory." 

Keep in mind: It's only July. There are months left for wildfires to burn. As the toxic smoke from these fires drifts across the continent, at times creating the worst air quality conditions on the planet, experts say that fire seasons in places like Alberta and B.C. are sparking earlier in the spring and burning longer into fall. This, in turn, is changing how provincial governments are planning to fight and prevent them.

According to Flannigan, this new reality brought about by climate change may soon have Alberta facing a "never-ending fire season." 

"People in California don't use the term fire season anymore, they call it 'fire year,'" he said. "To be honest, Alberta is close to that."

Indeed, recent years have seen flames hibernate in the soil over winter, smoldering beneath the snow for months, only to re-emerge in dry vegetation come spring.

That's what happened in the Fort McMurray fire, which started in spring 2016 and wasn't declared out until the following summer. 

Ellen Whitman, an Edmonton-based forest fire research scientist with Natural Resources Canada, says Alberta has historically had fires in every month of the year. 

"Even in December, we have some famous examples when there wasn't very much snow," she said. 

What's changing now, Whitman explained, is that the increasingly hotter conditions in tinder-dry forests have led to wildfires becoming more destructive, even as the overall number of ignitions hasn't changed much over the years. 

"It's really the weather conditions that are allowing these events to become so extreme," she said.

This increased threat of destructive wildfires has officials in B.C. changing their response. 

"We're going through huge changes right now as an organization because of the current climate," said David Greer, director of strategic engagement and partnerships for B.C. Wildfire Service.