Canada facing nearly 100 out of control wildfires triggering evacuations, emergency declarations

Alberta Wildfire 2025

Canada’s 2025 wildfire season is off to a busy start as nearly 100 out-of-control fires triggered states of emergency and multiple evacuations on Friday.

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center on Friday listed the national preparedness level at 5, the highest possible, signifying significant wildfire activity in one or more jurisdictions, and international firefighter help has been requested.

The center said an estimated 96 fires were considered out of control, while another 79 were either being held or under control. An estimated 1,788,976 acres (723,973 hectares) have burned since the year’s start.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba, both at level 5 local preparedness levels as of Friday, have declared provincial states of emergency after thousands of residents were forced to evacuate.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said that 15 communities in the province had been evacuated due to 17 active wildfires. The province has experienced 206 wildfires since the beginning of the year, well above the five-year average of 125.

“We are seeing the devastating effects of wildfires impact communities across our province,” Moe said in the emergency declaration. “Therefore, today we are making a Provincial Declaration of Emergency to mobilize the resources necessary to safely evacuate Saskatchewan residents and to protect our communities.”

Credit: Warman Fire Rescue

Manitoba officials said 22 active wildfires are burning across the province. A total of 103 wildfires have burned there since the year’s start, also above the average of 80 fires. Officials also enacted Level 3 fire and travel restrictions across the province as part of their emergency declaration, which includes closures of hiking trails and cancellation of burn permits.

“The province advises a significant wildfire threat remains in eastern Manitoba and all returning residents must be prepared to evacuate with little notice,” officials said. “It is recommended all residents prepare an emergency go kit.”

Alberta, at a level 4 local preparedness level, has yet to issue a state of emergency, but numerous communities there have also been evacuated.

Canada’s first-ever National Risk Profile, published in 2024, reported that the area burned annually by wildland fires throughout the nation has more than doubled since the 1970s. The total is expected to double again by 2100.

“Canadians are also experiencing increased property and socio-economic losses and health issues due to wildland fire activity and wildland fire smoke,” the report said. “Governments, citizens, and private industry are seeing higher response and post-event recovery costs; between 1980 and 2021, average wildland fire evacuation events and number of evacuees have shown notable increases.”

Click here to read the full report.

United States and Canada share firefighting resources

Saskatchewan air tanker 474

Above: Saskatchewan air tanker 474 lands at Medford, Oregon July 19, 2018.

Tim Crippin shot these photos of firefighting aircraft arriving at the Medford, Oregon airport July 19. The two air tankers and the Bird Dog aircraft are owned by the government of Saskatchewan. The planes were mobilized through the Pacific Northwest Compact to Oregon; it was not an action that was taken by the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC).

Saskatchewan Bird Dog 161
Saskatchewan Bird Dog 161 lands at Medford July 19, 2018.

The Canadians use “Bird Dog” aircraft in a role similar to lead planes in the United States. A Bird Dog usually works with two air tankers as a three-aircraft module. This one, 161, is an Aero Commander 690D.

Saskatchewan air tanker 471
Saskatchewan air tanker 471 lands at Medford, Oregon July 19, 2018

In addition to these three aircraft, other firefighting resources have been flowing across the international boundary in recent weeks from the U.S. to Canada:

  • NICC dispatched 12 wildland federal firefighters to Ontario, Canada.
  • The Northeast Compact sent resources to Ontario including three Type 2IA crews from New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts. However, the New Hampshire and Maine crews were demobed earlier this week and the Massachusetts crew will be demobed on Sunday.
  • Maine will be sending a second Type 2 IA crew to Ontario on Saturday.
  • The Great Lakes Compact has sent to Ontario 10 single resources (2 aviation managers and eight firefighters).
  • Wisconsin State will be mobilizing eight firefighters also to Ontario, Canada.

No aircraft have been sent to Canada from the U.S.

Precipitation reduces wildfire smoke in the central U.S.

current snowcover

Above: Snow cover in the United States, November 18, 2016. The Weather Channel.

Precipitation in the northwest quarter of the United States this week has put even more of a damper on the occurrence of wildfires, the execution of prescribed fires, and agricultural burning.

After weeks of warm, dry weather the Black Hills finally received a little precipitation over the last 24 hours. I won’t know the exact amount at my house until the snow in the rain gauge melts, but there was an inch or two of the white stuff on the ground. Today is sunny with a high of 32 predicted, so maybe it will trickle through the tipping bucket this afternoon.

snow rain gauge
Snow captured by my rain gauge since Thursday afternoon. Photo at 11 a.m. MT November 18, 2016 by Bill Gabbert.

Small amounts of precipitation in southern Saskatchewan may be the reason smoke from that area is no longer immigrating into the United States, as you can see in the two maps below. The first one was the smoke forecast for November 15 and the one after that is for today, November 18.

wildfire smoke forecast
Prediction for the distribution of smoke from wildfires at 6 p.m. ET, November 15, 2016. Produced at 7 a.m. ET November 15.

wildfire smoke forecast
Forecast for wildfire smoke at 6 p.m. ET November 18, 2016, created at 1 a.m. ET November 18, 2016.

However, prescribed fires, wildfires, or agricultural burning in Louisiana, Arkansas, and eastern Texas are still producing large quantities of smoke that at times moves north into the midwest.

No rain is predicted until the middle of next week for the areas where wildfires are smoking out the residents in some areas of Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina.

24 hour precipitation
Accumulated precipitation estimated by radar over the 24 hours before 7:07 a.m. ET November 18, 2016.

 

Canadian firefighting aircraft visit South Dakota

A visit by Canadian aircraft to the Pierre, South Dakota airport on Wednesday helped illustrate some of the features of the Great Plains Interstate Fire Compact. A new member of the organization, Saskatchewan, sent two of their firefighting aircraft to Pierre to be introduced to a crowd that included Governor Dennis Daugaard, members of South Dakota’s Wildland Fire Suppression Division, and representatives of the media.

Click on one of the photos below (provided by the South Dakota WFSD) to start a slide show of large images.

The Canadian province sent an air tanker, a CV-580A, and one of their Turbo Commander Bird Dogs, or lead planes as they are called in the United States. Saskatchewan has two CV-580As, which can hold up to 2,100 gallons of retardant, and two CL-215Ts, which can scoop 1,400 gallons of water by skimming over the surface of a lake.

One of the purposes of the Compact is to facilitate the sharing of ground and air fire resources among the member states, which include Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and now Saskatchewan. The Compact agreement allows the aircraft to be used in the six states and province more easily than if the compact did not exist.

A fun fact. The CV-580A in the photos, Tanker 475, was part of the U.S. government’s fleet four decades ago, when it was known as a C-131H and for a day was designated as Air Force One.

Below is an excerpt from an article at Air and Space Magazine:

…The hardy Convair has had a storied career of transport missions. Its 25,046 airframe hours include service with the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Department of State, and Marshals Service; the Peruvian National Police; and a Michigan cargo company. Among transports, it enjoys an exalted distinction: For at least a day, it was the presidential aircraft. On October 26, 1972, President Richard Nixon used it for a weekend campaign trip to Huntington, West Virginia, and Ashland, Kentucky. “I thought this airstrip was a little short,” Nixon told the crowd at the Huntington airport. “That is why we had to bring the Convair in.”

Its most frequent VIP customer, however, was Vice President Gerald Ford, who flew on it dozens of times from the fall of 1973 until he succeeded Nixon on August 9, 1974…

More information about the visit and the Compact are at the Capital Journal.

Wildfire briefing, July 15, 2015

Saskatchewan Premier wants a national fire cache and a fire mapping plane

The Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, wants the national government to establish a national cache of firefighting supplies and equipment that could be distributed when a province, or provinces, have multiple large fires ongoing. Perhaps he is thinking of a system similar to the one used in the United States, which has a national cache in Boise at the National Interagency Coordination Center.

“Some of those basic things that we would normally just call Manitoba or B.C. and say, ‘We need these things,’ well they were all fighting fires,” Mr. Wall said Wednesday. “Why, as a country, wouldn’t we have a cache? A national store to draw from if there is an occasion again where so many provinces are involved in fighting major fires?”

Mr. Wall also would like the see Canada acquire and operate a fire mapping plane that would use infrared detection equipment to see through smoke to map the perimeters and intensely burning areas of wildfires.

“If we could have at least one of those available nationally to provinces, because when it’s smokey, you have this whole flight … that’s grounded, and you might lose a little bit of ground that you might otherwise gain in better weather,” Wall said.

Wall will raise the idea at the premiers meeting in St. John’s, where he was heading on Wednesday.

Another drone shuts down aerial firefighting equipment

Sunday afternoon firefighting air tankers had to cease their operations on a fire near Yucaipa, California for about eight minutes when a drone was spotted over the fire.

Firefighting soldier takes bathroom break, gets lost for six hours

One of the 600 soldiers helping to suppress wildfires in Saskatchewan took a break to relieve himself Monday and didn’t return. His absence was noticed at 2 p.m. and a search began.

Below is an excerpt from an article at CBC.ca:

“I am happy to report, he is uninjured except for his pride, and many lessons, a number of lessons to be learned about this,” Brig.-Gen. Wayne Eyre said.

The Canadian Army said the soldier, one of some 600 from the Prairies deployed in the forest fire zone, had walked into the forest to relieve himself in privacy and got lost.

When others noticed he was missing at around 2:20 p.m. CST, a massive search began, involving soldiers, the Wildfire Management Centre, the RCMP, Canadian Rangers and other agencies.

The search virtually shut down firefighting in the area yesterday afternoon.

Eyre acknowledges that there should have been a buddy system in place, and the soldier, described as experienced, should have stayed in one spot.

Around 8:30 p.m., he was found.

130 U.S. firefighters deployed to wildfires in Canada

Five wildland fire suppression crews and 30 fireline management personnel are being mobilized to Canada to assist with fire suppression operations. Canada is experiencing an intense fire season and has requested wildland firefighting assistance from the United States.

The five 20-person wildland fire suppression crews were dispatched through the National Interagency Coordination Center in Boise, Idaho. Four of the crews are comprised of U.S. Forest Service firefighters from California, while one is a hotshot crew from the National Park Service in Estes Park, Colorado. The crews and the fireline management personnel will arrive in Edmonton, Alberta and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, over the weekend and will deploy to wildland fire incidents in both provinces. The U.S. also sent one heavy air tanker, a BAe-146, to Grande Prairie, Canada on July 5.