Current blazes roaring across country more than twice as likely to occur because of fossil fuel-driven global heating

The human-driven climate crisis made the conditions that led to blazes roaring across Canada, which have caused toxic smoke to spew throughout the country and into the US, twice as likely to occur, a new analysis has found.

Heightened global temperatures, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified the risk of fire-prone weather in Ontario and the Northwest Territories, scientists found. These provinces have been racked by fires this summer, causing towns to be evacuated and unhealthy smoke to unfurl across multiple cities in North America.

There are currently nearly 700 fires ablaze across Canada, with a huge 3.8m hectares of the country, mainly in its sprawling boreal forests. But the study by World Weather Attribution, a consortium of scientists that analyses climate change’s influence upon extreme events, found that fire weather seen in Canada this year is no longer a rare event.