Wildfires are burning in Canada where it never it used to be, need to pray for rain

30-Aug-2025

.

Frequent fires causing road closures, evacuations, travel chaos and stern warnings from officials have become fixtures of Canada’s wildfire season. 

Even as the country goes through its second worst burn on record, the blazes come with a twist: few are coming from the western provinces, the traditional centre of destruction. 

The worst of the fires have been concentrated in the prairie provinces and the Atlantic region, with bone-dry conditions upending how Canada responds to a threat that is only likely to grow as the climate warms.

The shift serves as a stark reminder that the risk of disaster is present across the thickly forested nation, experts say.  

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes for the past few days due to the wildfires. 

Saskatchewan and Manitoba covering more than 60% of the area burned in Canada and also seized strained resources in Atlantic Canada, where officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling to battle out-of-control blazes. 

A temporary ban on off-road vehicles in forested areas needs to be done because the province “simply cannot afford any further risks, given the number of out-of-control wildfires we have’, said the Newfoundland premier John Hogan on August 27 in response to the crisis. 

The ban follows a similar move by Nova Scotia, where a 15-hectare (37-acre) out-of-control fire is burning outside the provincial capital, Halifax. In addition to barring vehicles in wooded areas, Nova Scotia officials so shut down hiking, camping and fishing in forests, a decision reflecting the troubling fact that nearly all fires in the province are started by humans.

“Conditions are really dry, there’s no rain in sight, the risk is extremely high in Nova Scotia,” the province’s premier, Tim Houston, told reporters. “I’m happy to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to protect people, to protect property and try to just get through this fire season and really just pray for rain.”

Fires have even erupted in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region, a collection of rural communities less than 100 miles (160km) north of Toronto that are a popular summer destination for residents of Canada’s largest city.

For a country of sprawling landmass, fires have long been a common feature of the hot spring, summer and autumn. But for the last century, a mix of geography, climate and industry meant that the biggest and hottest fires and the vast majority of destruction have been concentrated in Canada’s western provinces.

Everything changed in 2023 when Canada had its worst fire season on record and the thick haze of smoke blanketed the US.