By Marina Green

The Canadian government is sounding the alarm about the 2024 fire season.

It issued a press release just days ago that warmer-than-normal conditions, widespread drought and low water levels could set the stage for round two of the historic fires that sent clouds of smoke billowing into the United States last summer. They blanketed New England and the Midwest in a milky haze that, at times, extended as far south as Florida.

Couple that with expected high temperatures, heightened by El Niño, a naturally occurring climate event, and Canadian officials are warning that extensive fire activity could start as soon as April or May and end far later than the usual October time frame.

“The 2023 Wildfire Season showed us what the world will be like if we fail to tackle climate change and prepare for increasingly intense burn seasons,” warned Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s minister of energy and natural resources, in a press release.

With an estimated 9 percent of the world’s forests, Canada has a great deal at stake. Last year’s more than 6,000 Canadian wildfires were the worst in recorded history. Firefighters outside of Canada who came in to help fight them described the fires as 100 times bigger than any they had seen before, according to a New York Times story.

Those blazes forced more than 230,000 people from their homes, according to Harjit S. Sajjan, Canada’s minister of emergency preparedness, in the press release. They tore through tens of millions of acres.

“As the effects of climate change increase the frequency of disasters, we will strive to apply the lessons we learned from last year’s historic wildfire season,” Sajjan said.

Beyond the massive destruction and financial devastation of the Canadian wildfires are their health implications. Poor air quality can and does cause health problems for people who have chronic lung disease and even those who don’t, according to BC Lung Foundation.

Air pollution can exacerbate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cause inflammation, irritate the lungs and even alter immune function, making it difficult to fight off respiratory infections such as COVID-19.

Even for those who are generally healthy, the question becomes is it safe to bike or run or walk or play in that air? When you look out your window on a hazy, summer day, just how potentially damaging is that haze? Do the benefits of exercise outweigh the damage you may be doing to your lungs?

What is in the smoke from Canada’s fires? Heavy metals, particles, gases, mercury, lead, cadmium, ammonia and C02 to name a few, said Dan McLennan, an air quality scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

“Wildfire smoke poses considerable health risks,“ said McLennan, who recently addressed an audience at the Air Quality and Health Workshop put on by the BC Lung Foundation on climate change. “Everyone is at risk regardless of their age or their health.”

A Canadian government analysis found that climate-related impacts are costing average Canadian households $720 per year today and will rise to around $2,000 per year by 2050. In 2023, Canada’s severe weather caused over $3.1 billion in insured damages.

“Extreme weather events are becoming far too familiar to Canadians as the impacts of climate change hit our communities,” Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said in a statement.

The government has accelerated its efforts: training more firefighters, providing more lifesaving equipment, and partnering with provinces and territories in advance of the 2024 wildfire season and others to come, Wilkinson said.

Last year, more than 5,500 firefighting personnel from 12 countries and the EU were deployed to Canada, said Dr. Piyush Jain with Natural Resources Canada.

“It was exceptionally challenging in terms of fire suppression,” he told the BC Lung audience.

Extreme heat is set to continue in 2024, according to World Weather Attribution(WWA). That organization “quantifies how climate change influences the intensity and likelihood of an extreme weather event in the immediate aftermath of the extreme event using weather observations and computer modelling.”

WWA predicts that the combination of human-caused climate change and El Niño, could see 2024 break last year’s record to become the hottest year on record.