We learned recently that Canada is home to the world’s longest trail network – the Trans Canada Trail.

This cross-Canada connected system of greenways, waterways and roadways extends over 28,000 kilometres, stretching east-west from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and north to the Arctic Ocean.  Apparently, according to the TCT non-profit group that fund-raises to continue development of the trail, most Canadians live within a 30-minutes’ drive to access of the trail. After hearing this observation by TCT President and CEO Eleanor McMahon while being interviewed by Steve Paikin on The Agenda, Catherine decided to test if this was indeed the case for her. Sure enough she learned that in Toronto she can access the Waterfront Trail via “The Toronto – Sir Casimir Gzowski Park Pavilion is located within the park at the foot of Windermere Avenue, along the Waterfront Trail, just east of the QEW Monument and the Humber Bay Bike Bridge.”

From the Pavilion panels (text available virtually), we learned a bit more about the history of the Trans Canada Trails’ launch in 1992 –

“The Great Trail in Ontario: This marks the connection of Ontario’s section of The Great Trail of Canada in honour of Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017. From where you are standing, you can embark upon one of the most magnificent and diverse journeys in the world. Whether heading east, west, north or south, The Great Trail—created by Trans Canada Trail (TCT) and its partners— offers all the natural beauty, rich history and enduring spirit of our land and its peoples. “Launched in 1992, just after Canada’s 125th anniversary of Confederation The Great Trail was conceived by a group of visionary and patriotic individuals as a means to connect Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Given Canada’s vastness, varied terrain and sparse population, it was a bold—almost impossible—undertaking. Today, the Trail stretches nearly 24,000 kilometres, giving Canadians, now and for generations to come, a way to honour our shared history by retracing many of the routes that charted our nation’s development. Paddlers can explore the rivers and lakes first traversed by Indigenous peoples and voyageurs; hikers and horseback riders can meander the paths travelled by our first settlers; and cyclists can pedal the former railways that powered early industry. With hundreds of sections, The Great Trail is a trail of trails, running through urban, rural and wilderness areas, including all provincial and territorial capitals and many of our country’s provincial, territorial and national parks. The Great Trail provides Canadians and visitors alike with free, accessible recreational infrastructure promoting healthy living, active transportation and an appreciation for Canada’s natural heritage.”

The trail connects over 15,000 communities and is created and maintained as a labour of love by thousands of Canadian volunteers, for the benefit and enjoyment of all Canadians.  Fun fact: The Trans Canada Trail also is home to the world’s longest free ferry ride (about 30 minutes), from Balfour to Kootenay Bay, British Columbia.

The TCT vision for the future – “Building on the achievement of connection, the Trans Canada Trail will continue to inspire everyone to embrace the outdoors, to discover the diversity of our land and people, to enhance their health and well-being, and to share their stories along this globally significant and iconic trail network.”

Youtube video of The Agenda interview with TCT President and CEO, Eleanor Mc Mahon –

Join the Great Canadian Hike

There is still time, until October 31, to be part of the second annual Great Canadian Hike if you are inspired to experience the trail for yourself while also contributing toward the goal of logging 28,000 hours on Canada’s 28,000 kilometre Trail.

From the Press Release launching the Great Canadian Hike —

“This year, TCT invites Canadians in all 13 provinces and territories to DISCONNECT from screens and RECONNECT with nature and to one another, by collectively spending 28,000 hours on Canada’s 28,000 km national trail. Whether they choose to hike, walk, run, skip, paddle, roll, stroll or bike, the Great Canadian Hike is the perfect antidote to the social isolation brought on by COVID-19. In fact, 95% of Canadians said their enhanced trail use was prompted by a desire to enhance their mental health since the onset of the pandemic.”

“In last year’s inaugural edition of the Hike, over 10,000 Canadians took up the challenge to collectively hike the length of the Trans Canada Trail, and amassed a combined distance of 108,000 km equivalent to almost three times the earth’s circumference!”

“New this year, participants are eligible to win great prizes when they refer friends and family members to join in the Great Canadian Hike. All participants must abide by local public health guidelines and recreate on the Trail safely and responsibly.”

“Visit the site at GreatCanadianHike.ca (to register for free) and watch the video here.”

“Find your local trail: Explore our map to find a Trail section close to you and decide where you’d like to hike. Check out our Featured Hikes for some inspiration!” (GreatCanadianHike.ca)

Virtual Visits with Parks Canada

Need more information and inspiration?  Readers may want to check out virtual visits to the Trail, put together by Parks Canada using Google Street View technology, at: https://tctrail.ca/parks-canada-virtual/

Virtual Park Tours are available for:

Banff National Park, Alberta

Terra Nova National Park, Newfoundland and Labrador

Pingo Canadian Landmark, Northwest Territories

Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area, Ontario

Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario

National Historic Sites

Virtual tours of national historic sites include, among others:

Cave and Basin National Historic Site, Alberta

Fort Langley National Historic Site, British Columbia

Riel House National Historic Site, Manitoba

Monument-Lefebrve National Historic Site, New Brunswick

Signal Hill National Historic Site, Newfoundland and Labrador

Halifax Citadel National Historic Site, Nova Scotia

Bethune Memorial House National Historic Site, Ontario

Chamblay Canal National Historic Site, Quebec

Batoche National Historic Site, Saskatchewan

S.S. Keno National Historic Site, Yukon

(Go to: https://tctrail.ca/explore-the-map/)

500 Days in the Wild

Meet and celebrate a (literal) Canadian TCT “trail-blazer” – Dianne Whelan.

On August 1, 2021, filmmaker Dianne Whelan, walked the last few feet of her epic six-year solo journey across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail, emerging at Clover Point, Vancouver Island, to become the first person to complete the continuous trail on land and water routes. She is producing a documentary, “500 Days in the Wild,” to detail her six-year experience and motivation for embarking on this journey.

This one-minute CBC newsclip introduces Dianne  –

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1941544515546.

She begins to unpack her story, in this piece by Elaine Glusac in the New York Times, “Learning to Love Solitude (and Hate Oatmeal) on a 15,534-Mile Canadian Trek”

One of her learnings resonated in particular with us at Friends4Trees4Life – “…I’ve been able to do these things because of human kindness. It was just meeting people, sharing the story, and people were like, ‘Hey, Uncle Joe is driving that way, he can take your canoe.’ It was very grassroots. I learned this beautiful story from an elder in the Mi’kmaq Indigenous community, Danny Paul, who said we’re kind of like trees. On the surface, every tree looks like it stands alone. Beneath the surface all the trees in a forest are connected…”

We agree – we are all connected across this beautiful country, Canada, on this incredible blue planet we gratefully share with all living things as our home.

Often, and understandably, it is noted that youth feel anxious about the future of our planet with climate change advancing. As well, we have read that the best way to combat this anxiety is for each of us to find ways to take back control by taking action and making a difference. From September 20-27 we can each join in around the country (with others around the globe) to peacefully protest in the #Friday Strikes for Future. Please consider looking up and joining in your area when this is happening. Most major locations have a culminating event on September 24.

#Friday Strikes for Future

“Because adults aren’t acting quickly enough to solve the climate change crisis, despite the abundance of solutions, young people are stepping up and speaking out in many ways and places. The #FridayForFuture climate strikes have grown into a worldwide movement since then 15-year-old student Greta Thunberg began her solitary strike outside Sweden’s parliament a year ago.”

“Thunberg recently arrived in New York, after a cross-Atlantic journey in a zero-emissions yacht, gearing up for a week of climate action from September 20 to 27 that includes the Friday strikes, a UN youth climate summit on September 21 and a global UN climate action summit on September 23. She also plans to attend the September 27 Montreal climate strike.”

“We strike so that in the United Nations meeting, when they speak, it is with our beliefs on their tongues. We strike so that when they raise their hands to vote, it is with the weight of our vision hanging from the tips of their fingers. We strike so that when they stand, it will be with the might of the youth, the workers, and the people,” School Strike for Climate Australia’s Evan Meneses said.

“As adults, we owe it to the youth and those not yet born to do everything in our power to ensure they have a livable future, with clean air, drinkable water, healthy food, biodiverse life and a stable climate. Dropping what you’re doing for one or more days to get out and march may not sound like much, but the more people show up, the louder the message to governments, media, industry and society.”

“Many of us grew up in times and places when we didn’t fully realize that our postwar shift to consumerism as economic policy was depleting Earth’s resources and throwing natural systems and cycles, including the carbon cycle, out of balance. We maybe had an inkling that some wealth in the developed world came at the expense of people in poorer nations, but we didn’t consider that driving around in large vehicles and burning gas were doing much more than causing some pollution, easily resolved by removing lead from gas and making fuel-efficient cars.”

“Now we’ve known for decades where the planet is headed if we continue with business as usual, and it’s not a human-friendly place. Let’s all get out there to demand action — and show the kids we care!” (From Davidsuzuki.org, at: https://davidsuzuki.org/story/lets-all-support-the-global-climate-strikes/)

United Nations Youth in Action

“Climate change has increased levels of uncertainty about our future. As its impacts intensify over time, one thing has become certain: We will leave the Earth to today’s children and young people, and to future generations. The world is home to 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 to 24 — the largest generation of youth in history. Young people are increasingly aware of the challenges and risks presented by the climate crisis and of the opportunity to achieve sustainable development brought by a solution to climate change.”

“Young people’s unprecedented mobilization around the world shows the massive power they possess to hold decision-makers accountable. Their message is clear: the older generation has failed, and it is the young who will pay in full — with their very futures.”

“Young people are not only victims of climate change. They are also valuable contributors to climate action. They are agents of change, entrepreneurs and innovators. Whether through education, science or technology, young people are scaling up their efforts and using their skills to accelerate climate action.”

“My generation has largely failed until now to preserve both justice in the world and to preserve the planet. It is your (the younger)generation that must make us be accountable to make sure that we don’t betray the future of humankind.” — United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres

United Nations Youth Advisory Group 

The seven members of the Youth Advisory group met earlier this year with Secretary General Antonio Gutteres for a spirited discussion on climate concerns related to green jobs, debt burdens, inadequate funding for youth movements and indigenous land rights, among others. These seven members of the Youth Advisory Group come from all regions of the world and diverse backgrounds as climate leaders, activists, lawyers, researchers, and economists. Gutteres said “Pressure is needed on those who make decisions and young people are leading that”.

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/yag-meeting

Enjoy your month of August out in nature, and we will take a summer vacation from our blog for a few weeks. Hope you see some of our great Canadian wildlife.

Photo credit white tailed jackrabbit, red squirrel, chipmunk, columbian ground squirrel and prairie dog: Lucia MacQuarrie

Photo Credit of Eastern Cottontail Rabbit, Red Squirrel, and Groundhog: MaryAnn Griffin

Photos of Racoons: by Lucia, MaryAnn and Jim

Photo credit of Muskrat, Beaver, Otter, Seal and Sea Lion: Lucia MacQuarrie and bottom images MaryAnn Griffin and Jim MacQuarrie

Photo credit of Striped Skunk: Lucia MacQuarrie

Photo credit of coyote pup and kit fox MaryAnn Griffin and red fox Lucia MacQuarrie

Photo credit of Elk: Lucia MacQuarrie

Photo credit of Polar Bear Lucy; Grizzly Bear Allan and Black Bear MaryAnn

Photo credit of Black Bear: MaryAnn Griffin

“For those living through yet another horrific fire season this is a graphic reminder of how climate change is with us, not just intermittently, but all the time” says Premiere of BC, Horgan.

By Amy Smart of the Canadian Press, July 21, 2021

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-wildfires-graphic-evidence-of-climate-change-horgan-says

While raging fires illustrate the implications of climate change with dramatic visual impact, the flames themselves don’t tend to claim lives in Canada. It’s the heat that precedes and sustains them, and the smoke they billow far and wide, that can have widespread and devastating implications for human health. And then there is the ongoing stress of losing your home, or being evacuated or being on alert for evacuation.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-a-us-lurch-toward-carbon-tariffs-should-have-canada-and-others/

Heat Waves are Increasing and Hotter Nights are Dangerous

When it comes to climate change, there is one fairly well-understood extreme that is already affecting humans around the world, most recently in Canada with deadly consequences-heat waves. According to a recent study published in the journal The Lancet, more than five million deaths annually around the world between 2000 and 2019 were associated with “non-optimal temperatures,” with roughly 10% or 500,000 of these deaths related to heat. While many of these deaths occur in tropical countries, heat waves are beginning to affect more northerly climes.

During the heat wave that suffocated B.C. at the end of June 2021, more than 800 people died in the province. For comparison, in the same period last year, there were 232 deaths, according to B.C. Coroners Service’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jatinder Baidwan. The coroner’s office is continuing to investigate all of the deaths in order to nail down exactly how many were heat-related.

While we know that daytime temperatures are rising, in some regions — specifically in parts of Ontario and Quebec — nighttime temperatures are warming faster. Those warmer nights mean our bodies don’t have any time to cool off. For people with health issues like heart disease or asthma, for example, this can be extremely problematic and potentially deadly. “Our bodies were not designed to put up with environmental heats that exceed the high 30s,” Baidwan said. “If you think about it, what happens to an air conditioning unit? When you stress it, it builds up with lots of ice on the outside and then it stops working. And in some ways that’s a great analogy for what happens to our bodies. With extreme heat, we just find it really hard to do the usual homeostatic sort of mechanisms and protocols that happen in our body.”

Parts of eastern Canada, including Ontario and Quebec, are seeing more frequent heat waves and tropical nights, defined as nighttime temperatures 20 C or higher. According to the Climate Atlas of Canada, the number of tropical nights in Toronto averaged roughly 6.9 annually from 1976 to 2005. With climate change, under a scenario where carbon emissions decline substantially, that is expected to climb to 17.6 annually from 2021 to 2050. If current rates of carbon emissions continue, the average number of tropical nights in Toronto is expected to hit 20.6 annually from 2021 to 2050. From 2051 to 2080, under the two different scenarios for emissions, the average number would rise to 26.4 and 42.8 respectively.

June 2021 was the hottest on record for the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, 2019, 2020 and 2021 are the three hottest Junes on record for the Northern Hemisphere.

Air Conditioning Creates Heat Islands in Cities

As Earth continues to warm, air conditioning may seem like a possible solution. The problem is that energy is needed to operate them, and this also produces heat. Cities create “heat islands” where heating is further amplified by  concrete structures, adding more stress to people who are living in a hotter climate. Some cities like  Toronto and Montreal are trying to introduce greener building codes and designs to address this. 

Widespread Effects of Heat on Wildlife

Average temperatures in Canada have already warmed by 1.7 C and the country is warming at more than twice the rate of the planet. Increasing heat waves with higher-than-average temperatures during days and nights are also taking a toll on animals and delicate ecosystems, as well as crops.

A study published in the journal Global Change biology last October found that nighttime temperatures are rising across most of the world. In those areas that saw more nighttime temperature warming than daytime, there was more cloud cover, higher precipitation and more humidity. This can affect nocturnal animals, but also animals that are active during the day who use the cooler nighttime temperatures to recover from heat stress. “The changes increase the boundaries at which nocturnal species can operate. So you may get shifts in ranges, which then messes up ecosystems from changing competition and changing predation/prey relationships, and things like that,” said Daniel Cox, lead author of the study and a research associate in the U.K. at the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute.

Nicole Mortillaro Senior Reporter, Science

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/nighttime-temperatures-climate-change-1.6112778

Forest Fires, Fire Weather and Climate Change

When forest fire researcher Mike Flannigan looks ahead at what climate change means for wildfires in Canada, he doesn’t beat around the bush: “in a word, the future is smoky.”

Flannigan has been studying fire for over thirty years. He’s researched the key ingredients of destructive wildfires – fuel, ignition, and weather – all over the world. His work, and the work of hundreds of other researchers, shows that climate change is predicted to worsen all three ingredients across most of Canada, making global warming a triple threat to our forests.

When he considers what’s in store for Canada, Flannigan says simply that “There is a lot more fire in the future, and we better get used to it.” More and more Canadians are living, working, and playing in Canada’s forests. That means more people are likely to be affected by larger and larger fires – even catastrophic ones. “Was Fort McMurray a one-off?” Flannigan muses: “Heavens, no.”

To figure out what climate change means for forest fires in Canada, Flannigan and a team of researchers at the Canadian Forest Service analyzed the findings of almost 50 international studies on climate change and fire risk. They found that our future looks “smoky” because climate change will worsen the three major factors that influence wildfire: having dry fuel to burn, frequent lightning strikes that start fires, and dry, windy weather that fans the flames.

Another recent study  by Flannigan and several other scientists predicts that western Canada will see a 50% increase in the number of dry, windy days that let fires start and spread, whereas eastern Canada will see an even more dramatic 200% to 300% increase in this kind of “fire weather.” Other studies predict that fires could burn twice as much average area per year in Canada by the end of the century as has burned in the recent past. 

Mitigation

There’s a vicious cycle connecting forest fires and climate change: warmer temperatures make fires more likely, and burning forests release greenhouse gas pollution that makes global warming worse. This means that overall efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming will also help prevent forest fires. And on the other hand, working to reduce the number and severity of forest fires will also help slow climate change.

Many aspects of wildfire are out of our control, but as Flannigan notes: “every human-caused fire is preventable.” And Findlater reports that many of the recent fires near Kelowna have been caused by human carelessness. A world of ever-increasing fire risks and consequences will demand more fire bans and forest closures as well as more innovative and life-long fire education to reduce the number of human-caused fires.

A recent fire set from a gender reveal party is possibly going to result in jail time.

Adaptation

How do we “get used to” a world with much more wildfire? Fortunately, there are a number of things individuals and municipalities can do to reduce fire risk. Fire Smart [https://www.firesmartcanada.ca ] guidelines are available for individuals and for community leaders. Municipalities can create and maintain fire buffers around and within their communities by bulldozing trees, removing built-up forest litter, and making creative use of parks and open spaces as fire breaks. Findlater would like to see provincial regulation of fuel-rich private land, requiring better management that will reduce fire risk to the community as a whole. And individual homeowners and businesses can design buildings with fire safety in mind, for example avoiding the use of flammable materials in construction and landscaping.

We also need to adapt our wildfire response strategies to a world of more frequent, more intense fires. Natural Resources Canada estimates the fire protection costs could double in Canada by 2040 as we attempt to keep up with the worsening risk.  Flannigan argues that remote fires should be allowed to run their course by burning freely without human interference. Concentrating fire-fighting budgets and capacity on wildfires that directly threaten human lives and livelihoods will prevent the most catastrophic impacts, naturally reduce the buildup of dry fuel in the wilderness, and prevent firefighting costs from growing wildly out of control along with our worsening forest fires.

Many effective and innovative firefighting strategies are already in place. Findlater suggests that excellent systems have been created to share emergency-response leadership and resources across regions, provinces, and the entire country. He notes that British Columbia’s regional emergency management services are getting better and better at coordinating their wildfire response: but “sad to say,” it’s because “we’ve had a lot of practice.”

https://climateatlas.ca/forest-fires-and-climate-change

Backburn

One approach that can be effective in reining in intense wildfires is known as backburn – setting a controlled fire that backs into the prevailing wind in the path of an approaching wildfire. The low-intensity backburn consumes fuel in a managed way before a high-intensity, out-of-control fire gets the chance to burn it. “The fire goes out because there’s no fuel,” Dr. Flannigan said. But while the technique is effective, it can also be risky, particularly in mountainous regions such as Western Canada, where the wind direction can shift quickly and turn the backburn into a new out-of-control fire.

In anticipation of forest fire season, some jurisdictions will engage in prescribed burning, in which a patch of land is purposefully burned and the fire is monitored and controlled. This practice stems from the principle that an out-of-control wildfire that bumps up against land that has recently been subject to a prescribed burn will start to dwindle. Burned land is unlikely to burn again for 10 to 20 years.

Learning from Indigenous Fire Managers

“It may seem counterintuitive to fight fire with fire,” a report released last month by the Global Climate and Health Alliance says. “However, fire is used in carefully controlled ways by Indigenous communities around the world.”

The report, The Limits of Livability: The Emergency Threat of Smoke Impacts on Health from Forest Fires and Climate Change, recommended that wildfire agencies work with and learn from Indigenous fire managers.

One such Indigenous fire manager is Russell Myers Ross, the former chief of Yunesit’in First Nation, one of six communities within the Tsilhqot’in Nation in central B.C. Mr. Myers Ross is the community’s main liaison with Gathering Voices, an Indigenous-led charity that’s supporting a project aimed at revitalizing traditional fire management in the territory.

“Indigenous people have been using fire as a way of managing the land for hundreds, if not thousands, of years,” Mr. Myers Ross said. “For us, it’s a chance to revitalize that knowledge.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-a-us-lurch-toward-carbon-tariffs-should-have-canada-and-others/

Fighting B.C. Wildfires

Doug Findlater, mayor of West Kelowna, recalls seeing the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park fire sweep into town: “It kind of looked like a war movie, with houses blowing up all over the place,” he says. More recently, Canadians watched with horror as the immense Fort McMurray fire of 2016 threatened the city. The Fort Mac fire caused the evacuation of almost 90,000 people and quickly became the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history, destroying 2400 buildings and causing about $10 billion in damage.

Forest fires make headlines across Canada every summer. They regularly devastate millions of acres of forest  and sometimes threaten entire communities with sudden, catastrophic violence. Destructive fires have an enduring impact on the community that lingers long after people return home to resume their lives. Findlater speaks from experience when he says “life is never quite the same again after you’ve been evacuated.” The extraordinary danger and lasting impacts of wildfire explain why we spend so much money – about a billion dollars a year – fighting it. 

Fire is a seasonal summer threat because it can only start, intensify, and spread in hot, dry weather. Findlater reflects that “as a mayor, I don’t really look forward to summer in the way most people do.” He notes that as climate change brings on longer, drier summers, Canadians will have to live with more and more risk of more and more serious wildfires, and that we have to take decisive steps to manage the growing danger.

“Climate change is forcing B.C. to rethink how it fights wildfires, say experts. Tactics are adapting, but not fast enough as wildfires worsen. While the province has invested millions in fire prevention, some in the fire management sector say much more is needed, as well as a fundamental rethinking of fire suppression. The sudden incineration of homes in Lytton — with at least presumed two dead in the blaze, according to the  BC Coroners Service — came as a shock to one wildfire expert who previously advised groups in the area on prevention.

“I was quite surprised to see how everything transpired there because I know how much work they’ve done in Lytton to clean up all the grass and needles, but they couldn’t tackle all the hazards around the community,” said Brenden Mercer, forestry management liaison for First Nations’ Emergency Services Society, who conducted assessments for Lytton-area First Nations and municipal authorities.

Last time we checked the province of B. C. has 277 active wildfires with about 5500 homes under evacuation orders and 17,691 properties on alert. Most fires have been started because of lightning. On average 60% of the fires are caused by lightning and 40% human cause either intentional, or accidental. Human-caused fires cause the most fires that affect homes, and are the major cause of fires in more remote areas, too. They include wildfires started by debris burning, sparks thrown from equipment and railroads, power lines, smoking, fireworks, campfires, accidental ignitions, and arson. Overall, human-caused fires have doubled the length of the wildfire season compared to lightning-caused fires.

“Generally speaking, B.C. was three weeks ahead of it’s drying cycle,” Cliff Chapman, director of regional operations for the B.C. Wildfire Service, told reporters Friday afternoon. “It is not really comparable to seasons of the past just because of the heat wave that set in in June.”

“Mercer, a registered forest technologist, said that much has improved in B.C. since the devastating wildfire season in 2017. In particular, the province has committed to working with First Nations, and there is funding for training Indigenous firefighters and preparedness. But he said more support is needed, in particular when it comes to prescribed burns which are carefully controlled blazes intentionally set to use up potential wildfire fuel. Such practices were widespread among Indigenous peoples in B.C. — but recent decades of fighting fires instead of preventively managing their fuel mean that many ecosystems have become a tinderbox. “It’s come to the point where some of these ecosystems have so much more fuel than they would have historically,” Mercer explained.”

“There is also more urban development encroaching on forests and climate change is also at play, contributing to the recent heat wave which saw records shattered across the province —  the highest in Lytton which reached 49.6C a day before it burned.”

“He urged authorities to follow First Nations’ advice and do “more aggressive prescribed burning,” especially around communities surrounded by grasslands mixed with pine needles. “Putting fire back into the landscape can help protect it from fire for almost a decade,” he said. “It’s 100 per cent the way the Indigenous people look at wildfires, compared to how governments fight wildfires. After the 2017 wildfires, the province’s emergency management agency increased its cooperation with First Nations. On Friday, Emergency Management B.C.’s Pader Brach said the province made efforts to ensure Indigenous communities were “sitting at the same table” as soon as possible this week, and that the government was taking a “collaborative” approach.”

“The Lytton fire can also serve as a wake-up call to prepare for the long-predicted impacts of climate change, said an expert at the University of Victoria. Wildfire management funding has been boosted to $101M as B.C. prepared for the dry season. “Climate impacts are driving these extreme fire seasons,” said Carly Phillips, with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions’ Wildfire and Carbon Project. “Unfortunately”, she said, “not only are wildfires worsened by climate change, but in turn, burning forests contributes massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change itself.” “

David P. Ball is a CBC News reporter in Vancouver. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/climate-change-fighting-bc-wildfires-1.6088956

Here is another article on forest fire management if you would like to read more:

Prescribed Burns

From the link above: “Last month, a paper out of UBC selected a stand of old-growth forest outside Williams Lake, B.C. and used tree-ring data to carefully track what fires in the area used to look like before the onset of the 20th century. What researchers found was that, prior to the arrival of Europeans, prescribed burns through the area roughly every 10 to 30 years, and were usually of middling severity. Nowadays, modern fire suppression ensures that the same kind of forest will typically go 70 to 180 years without a burn, guaranteeing a much more severe fire when it does strike. “In absence of low- to moderate-severity fires, contemporary forests are dense with closed canopies that are vulnerable to high-severity fire,” wrote researchers. B.C. forests piled high with what wildfire experts call “fuel load” — the accumulated debris, deadwood and untreated clearcut areas that can dramatically accelerate the speed and intensity of a wildfire. There needs to be a great increase in the number of prescribed burns.

https://nationalpost.com/news/why-you-cant-just-blame-climate-change-for-b-c-being-on-fire/wcm/58cb1ad6-f0de-446a-9878-0abb0b717696/amp/

The Smoky Future and Our Health

“In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the wildfires and deadly June heat wave that set more than 1,200 new temperature records across North America have provided the Liberal government with an opportunity to bolster its climate-change agenda. “We simply have to be even more aggressive in our thoughts,” he said. Already, wildfire seasons in some jurisdictions have become longer. In Alberta, for example, the fire season officially begins March 1 while just a few years ago, the start date was April 1.

The area burned by wildfires in Canada has doubled since the early1970s, said Mike Flannigan, research chair for predictive services, emergency management and fire science at Thompson Rivers University, in Kamloops. In California, where almost 10,000 wildfires raged during last year’s record season, that trend is even more pronounced. The area burned has increased by at least a factor of five.

Dr. Flannigan said it’s going to get worse – it’s just a matter of how much worse. Modest predictive modelling suggests the area burned in Canada will double again by the end of the century; more aggressive modelling predicts it will increase by a factor of as much as 11. And people who live far from the actual wildfires can be exposed to poor air quality from burning biomass. In 2018, smoke from wildfires in British Columbia spread across Canada and as far as Ireland; last year, smoke floated from the states of Washington and Oregon into Western Canada. Wildfires are about extremes. In Canada, 3 per cent of fires on average burn 97 per cent of the total area burned. 

The recipe for wildfire is always the same. It has three ingredients: ignition, either from human activity (which dominates in the spring) or lightning (which dominates in the summer); vegetation, which serves as the fuel; and hot, dry, windy weather. “If you have all three, away we go,” Dr. Flannigan said. “As the temperature increases, the ability of the atmosphere to suck moisture out of the vegetation increases almost exponentially.”

Scientists are still debating whether climate change is exacerbating the situation in ways beyond temperature, such as increasing the likelihood of the blocking pattern that held the hot, high-pressure air system over the West during the recent heat wave( heat dome). Dr. Flannigan said research in North America suggests that while this blocking pattern isn’t necessarily happening more frequently, it is increasing in intensity and duration. Another factor in the role of climate change is precipitation, which is harder to determine because of high variability of rainfall in the West.”

The Shocking Effects of the Smoke

“Whatever climate effects are lurking in the background, once a wildfire has started, its potential impact over a broad swath of the country in the form of smoke can be predicted with growing confidence. This is the goal of BlueSky Canada, a smoke-forecasting project led by atmospheric scientists at the University of British Columbia. On a daily basis, the BlueSky system takes in infrared satellite data that can spot where fires are burning, and combines them with data on fuels, soil moisture and wind patterns at altitude to estimate how much smoke is likely to be injected into the air and where that smoke is likely to find its way back to the surface.

Not every breath of smoke is created equal, because not all wildfire smoke is created equal. In addition to gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, it’s also full of particulate matter – solid particles and liquid droplets of varying sizes. When it comes to smoke exposure, air quality indexes and studies tend to look at what’s known as PM2.5, The composition of the PM2.5 depends entirely on what, exactly, is in the line of fire. Grasses, trees, houses and cars, for instance, all release different substances into the air when burned.

“These particles are important because when you breathe them in, they’re small enough to get into your cardiovascular system,” said Chris Rodell, a BlueSky Canada researcher.

Dr. Henderson is so concerned about the health effects of smoke exposure that she helped develop a supplement to the classic Air Quality Health Index, which was originally developed for urban environments where the air pollution mixture is dominated by traffic-related and industrial pollution. The calculation includes PM2.5, but particulate matter is afforded relatively little weight. Practically speaking, this meant the classic index tended to underreport the health risk during fire season. The supplement to the classic index, known as AQHI-Plus, only looks at PM2.5 levels, better reflecting the air quality experienced during forest fire season. The AQHI-Plus is now in use in B.C., and Dr. Henderson said its use is also under consideration in other provinces and territories.

With high concentrations, visibility is greatly reduced and, as Dr. Henderson puts it, “You can smell the smoke and taste it.” But it’s at levels of just 30 micrograms or so per cubic metre that the population starts to respond adversely to the smoke. “When the smoke looks really bad, people think it is really bad,” she said. “But it becomes unhealthy long before it looks terrible.”

PM2.5 can reach deep into the lungs, prompting the body to mount an immunological response just as it would if it detected the presence of an unwanted bacteria or virus. “The immunological response ends up causing inflammation, and that inflammation is systemic,” says Dr. Henderson, who has been studying wildfire smoke for two decades and has published upward of 40 papers on the topic. In other words, particulate pollution from smoke can affect every organ system in the body.

So while people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are the canaries in the coal mine of wildfire smoke, the inflammation can also increase the likelihood of a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or a stroke. Emerging research also suggests that the body’s response to smoke exposure can make it harder for people with diabetes to balance their insulin levels, and may affect brain function for those whose cognitive abilities are already compromised.

Also important when considering the effects of wildfire smoke is the duration of exposure. Smoke can be transient, lasting hours or days, or it can be persistent. Atmospheric conditions can park smoke over a particular area for weeks or even months, as was the case in Yellowknife in 2014. The “summer of smoke” in the Northwest Territories capital was one of the longest and most severe wildfire smoke exposures logged in the global evidence base” and resulted in a lot of hospitalizations and a great increase health issues seeking treatment.

KATHRYN BLAZE BAUMENVIRONMENT REPORTER. IVAN SEMENIUKSCIENCE REPORTER July 21, 2021

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-a-us-lurch-toward-carbon-tariffs-should-have-canada-and-others/

For more reading about smoke from wildfires we came across this article in the Edmonton Journal on Tuesday July 27, 2021.