Summer has only just begun yet the Prairies have been ablaze for about a month already.

From Alberta to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, wildfires are burning at rates matching those of the 2023 wildfire season, threatening homes, communities, and Indigenous territories. But this is not just a seasonal phenomenon, it is a symptom of a deeper, systemic crisis — one born of global warming, water mismanagement, and our continued failure to mitigate and adapt. We are not simply witnessing another wildfire season — we are experiencing its escalating costs: social, environmental, and economic.

Already this year, more than 3.5 million hectares of Canadian forest has burned — more than four times the 10 year average since 2015.

The science is unequivocal: global warming is making wildfires more intense, frequent, and destructive. Data from Environment and Climate Change Canada shows that between 1948 and 2023, 60 per cent of Canada’s weather stations reported a growing number of days under extreme heat conditions. In Alberta, the 2023 wildfire season burned a record-breaking 2.2 million hectares — the season was ten times more severe than the average, and forced over 38,000 residents to evacuate.

These fires are not just more frequent — they’re more ferocious. Higher temperatures due to global warming dry out vegetation, extend fire seasons, and reduce recovery time between events. Even in the cold of winter, overwintering (zombie) fires are burning under thinner and thinner layers of snow,........

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