True Patriot Love - October 03, 2025


Canada’s Wildfire Crisis： What’s Being Done and What Needs to Change？


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

182.39198

Word Count

3,352

Sentence Count

241


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Okay, well here we are at the end of the summer and it has been a long hot summer
00:00:04.740 full of smoke and fires across Canada. Total number of wildfires 5,071 as of
00:00:11.160 September 3rd. Area burned roughly 8.32 million hectares and it's the second
00:00:17.700 worst season on record. Active forest fires across the country are causing
00:00:22.500 problems in Canada and to our neighbors all around us. Today we're going to
00:00:26.820 address wildfires in Canada. Well, you heard the stats. Paul Micucci, thanks for
00:00:39.300 joining me. Let's talk about this. We are on fire and it seems like we're not doing
00:00:44.760 anything about it. No, no. You know, I was, again, I was astounded when I looked at the
00:00:50.700 map and I saw all the dots and as you look at this map, it's absolutely insane of the
00:00:56.400 number of wildfires that are out of control. So the purple dots on the map
00:01:00.540 show you where they're out of control. Now, you know, I want to put a little bit in
00:01:05.060 context because we haven't talked about it. Fires are natural. They're, you know, the
00:01:09.640 combustion and they happen every year and they've happened forever, right? I mean,
00:01:14.400 it's not something new. We never really heard about it because fires would come
00:01:18.060 and then they would go for a while, then they would burn out with rain, you know,
00:01:22.700 the dew, the climate change, everything else. But, and as it got colder coming out of the
00:01:27.840 summer, this year, you know, these things hit a, hit a, what, second worst year ever?
00:01:33.440 They say this is the second worst forest fires on record. Yeah. So, you know, this is, and,
00:01:39.040 you know, last year wasn't good either. So we had a couple of years really bad, you know,
00:01:44.420 and, and the size of these are becoming even bigger. So before we were talking about it,
00:01:49.080 what are the size of this, like the massive fires in comparison to, well, if you put it in comparison
00:01:55.940 to like, uh, uh, the, the number of hectares, it's bigger than many European countries. And it's
00:02:02.760 about the same size as Costa Rica, just the portion that is on fire now. The Costa Rica that Donald Trump
00:02:08.540 loves. Right. Sorry. We're setting it alight here in Canada. Oh man. So that's the size of it. So
00:02:14.560 there, there you go. And you raise these other implications that come with it. We've, you know,
00:02:19.400 our neighbors to the South have been inundated with the ash and smoke and pollution issues.
00:02:24.380 They're not happy about that. No, not at all. To the North, you pointed out it's, it's having more,
00:02:29.340 uh, or, uh, environmental impact. Yeah. The glaciers are covered with ash. And quite frankly,
00:02:35.300 some of the scientists are saying that the ash is making the glaciers melt faster. Right.
00:02:40.400 Wow. So, which isn't good for anyone, you know, water levels, uh, the environment. So,
00:02:46.040 so not a good outcome. And, and, you know, it leads us to what is the number one, what is the root cause?
00:02:53.660 Um, right. What do you think? Well, a couple of things I think, uh, first and foremost, and I'm,
00:03:00.280 you know, that I hate to talk on this topic because I feel uneducated about it and a little bit sore about
00:03:05.300 it because of how we've been taxed on it. But environmentally speaking, things are changing.
00:03:10.740 There is a climate change that's contributing to the amount of lightning we're getting, how dry the
00:03:15.540 forests are. And, and, and that just may be a fact of life. You know, I don't know what causes climate
00:03:21.460 change. I think personally, the, the, uh, jury is out on that among, uh, among humanity. However,
00:03:28.580 the effects of it are real. And I think that this is one of the effects that we're seeing.
00:03:32.360 Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, you know, climate change is one of those ones that, you know, people debate
00:03:38.960 back and forth. So, you know, I, I not sure I'm totally convinced, but, but, you know,
00:03:45.600 the other thing I would like to, I'm not sure I'm convinced humans have caused the problem and that
00:03:50.780 we can fix it or that it's just a secular issue with this planet. Yeah, it could be. And, you know,
00:03:58.200 have we, so this is an interesting thing. So when we turned to a green, let's call it green economy.
00:04:06.300 So when we said to ourselves, let's stop cutting. So let's take my neighborhood for example,
00:04:11.040 because I think it's interesting. I grew up when I grew up, the trees were manicured,
00:04:16.100 the bushes were cut, the grass and the parks were cut. Uh, when I went up to the cottage, right? The,
00:04:23.480 the highways were all trimmed, right? The side of the highways were trimmed, the forests were trimmed
00:04:28.700 back, right? The underbrush was cut. Uh, people did slow burns throughout, you know, we had a cottage
00:04:35.300 in Minden, Halliburton. Yeah. They did control burns quite often. Quite often. I remember, I remember
00:04:40.080 as a kid with my grandfather, uh, he bought a, uh, a point, which was part swamp and he did an infill,
00:04:48.180 he built cottages and we would do slow burns, uh, you know, to take care of the brush around the
00:04:54.660 cottages as we were building, uh, for safety and security, right? So somewhere along the way,
00:05:01.540 we just stopped. It's amazing. We heard, uh, Donald Trump at one point say, we need to clean the forest.
00:05:07.380 Yeah. And everybody laughed, but it was a constant. Certainly in Canada, we had forestry,
00:05:13.300 uh, departments in every province. We had an eye on it at a federal level. Now it feels like we're
00:05:20.500 just ignoring the fire right in the middle of our country, the size of Costa Rica. And I don't
00:05:24.820 understand. Well, did you have, no, I agree. And, and did we, so as these think about it for a minute
00:05:30.760 and those, you know, I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of it, but think about your own
00:05:35.820 life, right? As your trees in your yard grow, they grow so big, they become so dense and then,
00:05:41.320 you know, storms knock them down, they fall. So you're in the middle of the wilderness,
00:05:45.880 you know, in the forest that's happening organically and everything's compiling on top of each other.
00:05:51.880 So as you know, trees are becoming weaker and older, they're falling down and then forces are
00:05:57.720 becoming more dense. No, one's going into these forces and doing anything. So as we get warm or warmer,
00:06:04.840 in your case, if climate is climate challenges are an issue, then that's where combustion happens.
00:06:12.840 And also, you know, we're learning more, I kind of funny when preparing for this show,
00:06:19.000 I never knew that quite frankly, this year was one of the first years that we finally got a handle on
00:06:24.040 what causes lightning. I was like, I thought we always knew what caused lightning.
00:06:27.880 I thought we always knew too.
00:06:28.600 No, apparently scientists are finally coming to the conclusion on what causes lightning, which
00:06:33.880 for another show is probably a whole show we can bring someone in on.
00:06:36.760 Now, if we can control it, we could take over the world.
00:06:41.080 But, you know, lightning around the world, 50 to 100 times every second,
00:06:46.200 lightning hits the earth. So quite frankly, you know, in places like Africa and that,
00:06:51.160 they have huge amount of lightning strikes because of the cold and the heat coming together.
00:06:56.840 But, you know, we do too, quite frankly, we have issues here with mountains and mountain ranges,
00:07:02.040 density. Right.
00:07:03.000 So we have the same issue, of course, but, but, you know, that that is combining or
00:07:08.360 with the combustion and the lightning is always going to be happening. So.
00:07:12.280 Well, the good news is we've ordered some bombers, some additional water bombers.
00:07:17.000 And who do we give them to?
00:07:18.520 Well, a bunch of the, a bunch of the ones that we have, have gone overseas. That is for sure.
00:07:23.080 Some of them have gone to California, but the water bombers that we have ordered,
00:07:27.240 which we desperately need to arrive in Winnipeg, should be ready 2031.
00:07:32.520 Oh, okay.
00:07:33.720 So what do we do? Just let it burn until then?
00:07:36.920 So we have six years of burning?
00:07:38.760 Yeah.
00:07:39.320 Okay. Well, we might not have the issue then.
00:07:41.720 It may be all burned by then. Yeah.
00:07:44.360 Well, if you cancel the order.
00:07:45.880 If you, if you're burning, uh, forests, the size of Costa Rica every year for six years,
00:07:53.320 I don't know. You know, I'm not a, you know, I have to do the math, but quite frankly,
00:07:58.200 that seems like a lot of land. We're going to be not only that burning through.
00:08:01.560 Aren't we one of the greatest suppliers of oxygen to the planet, our forests? I mean,
00:08:06.760 what are we doing to the planet overall to let this burn? If you really want to think about the
00:08:10.360 environment on a global level, let's stop these fires as soon as we can.
00:08:14.360 Well, yeah, it makes sense. And it, it takes, uh, what?
00:08:18.440 How many hundreds of years for this, for a burnt forest to restore?
00:08:22.360 I think it's over 110 years on average for a pine forest to reforestate, but you can't just have,
00:08:28.360 uh, pines growing. You need a, a mix of, uh, of, uh, horticulture and, and, uh, ground cover.
00:08:36.760 All of this sort of stuff is completely gone. Uh, and you're right. So now we have a hole in the
00:08:42.600 middle of Canada for how long? Yeah. And what happens in that time as the environment changes?
00:08:49.880 I think that what we need to do, and if we can take a look at the, uh, the map is,
00:08:53.320 I think we have a map that we can throw up. The amount of forest fires that we're seeing on this
00:08:58.920 map across our country is absolutely stunning. And the ones in pink are burning out of control.
00:09:03.320 Yeah. This is the biggest, this is bigger than an epidemic. This is an epidemic of flame.
00:09:11.320 Yeah. That's shutting down, uh, well, look what it did last year. It, it shut down a major tourist
00:09:17.240 area in Western Canada, um, in Alberta. It's taking out a huge chunk of, uh, of the forest that is our
00:09:26.920 natural preserved lands, Northern Canada. My, my friends in St. John's actually, uh, had their
00:09:33.800 luggage packed most of the summer because they were waiting for the fire to come over the ridge,
00:09:38.600 um, and take out their house. And the funny thing is I, I spent a lot of time in St. John's with them.
00:09:44.360 And, uh, it's not that far outside of the city. That's the scary part of it. I was like, wow.
00:09:49.400 If you take a look at it, same with Nova Scotia. I mean, you get outside of the, you leave the
00:09:54.040 airport, you're in the middle of the woods until you get to the city and it's just outside the city.
00:09:59.320 So yeah, I mean, just the smoke impact and the, the environmental issues that you would have,
00:10:04.520 uh, butting up against these cities, it has to stop.
00:10:06.840 Well, we, you know what, we, we made some calls, so we called around and we tried to get ahold of
00:10:11.320 people and I get it. They're busy with, with these many fires going on. I'm sure they had more to do
00:10:16.600 than, uh, to talk to us today, but you know, I dug around, I said, there's gotta be an action plan
00:10:21.720 and there's gotta be a group of people on a federal level that's responsible for this. So I came across
00:10:26.760 the Canadian council of forest ministers and they had, they do have an action plan,
00:10:31.560 a wild land fire management work group. Okay.
00:10:35.080 So there is a working group on this and they have an action plan. And I said, okay, great. You know,
00:10:39.880 cause there's gotta be some really, um, interesting things in here. So I flipped through and, uh, I came
00:10:47.400 to a six point action plan. So, and I just wanted to go through. So the first one is to enhance whole
00:10:53.320 of government collaboration and governance to strengthen resilience. Okay. Okay. Great.
00:11:01.320 The second one is to improve understanding of wild land fire risks in all sectors of society.
00:11:09.720 Okay. Okay. So I got, wow. So those are two things.
00:11:14.120 Third one, prioritize whole of government prevention and mitigation activities.
00:11:19.240 Oh, that means. So convince people it's important. Oh, right. That's number three on the list.
00:11:23.320 Convince people this is important. Okay. Number four, enhance wild land fire preparedness,
00:11:27.960 response capacity and coordination and foster development of new capabilities.
00:11:33.320 Okay. Well, we do need some new capabilities. That's for sure. Right. So fifth one,
00:11:39.480 strengthen recovery efforts to increase resilience and minimize the impacts of future fireland,
00:11:45.160 wild land fires. And six, advance the next generation of wild land fire management, science,
00:11:52.280 innovation and research. Okay. Okay. So you know what all good buzzwords, you know, and I'm not being
00:12:00.760 critical. I'm sure these gentlemen and ladies and gentlemen are trying as hard as they can, but you
00:12:06.280 know, it sure as heck sounds to me that they're fighting this as a kind of a losing battle. And it also
00:12:12.920 feels like they're lobbyists and they have to be on their own behalf. And they're basically creating
00:12:19.000 a working group to try to convince people this is important. Why? So, you know, we saw what happened
00:12:24.760 in LA and this is what kind of blows my mind a little about this issue. We saw that mayor, remember the
00:12:31.480 mayor, you know, the, uh, the president was attacking the mayor for going on vacation, coming back, no
00:12:38.360 communication plan. This Palisades burns down and it's a mess, right? Are we waiting for something
00:12:44.840 like this to happen? Are we waiting for a major city to catch fire? Because it sure seems like we
00:12:49.560 are doing a lot of kind of general buzzword lobbying, you know, kind of, you know, nice, happy work groups.
00:12:59.000 Like I'm thinking at this point when the fires are getting the size of Costa Rica, we should have
00:13:05.240 already been past that, right? Like we should have been like, this is really important. Well, yeah,
00:13:09.720 we need to allocate a big budget to this. We need to have dedicated crews. We need to kind of like
00:13:15.320 we're doing with crime a little bit with police forces. We need to double our resources. And quite
00:13:21.400 frankly, we need to take some of the monies we're sending abroad and keep it here and tackle this in our
00:13:28.120 own country. Again, I hate to harp on it. I sound every time we meet, but domestic issues, right? Isn't this a
00:13:35.160 big domestic issue that we should be going at? Oh, 100%. And the other thing to kind of
00:13:41.640 cap all of this off is if we are not taking care of, if this plan is not in effect already and doing
00:13:50.760 something, it feels very Canadian to me. It feels 10 years late. Yeah, it feels very, this plan feels to
00:14:00.680 me like it has more to do with communicating with humanity than actually getting a job done. Yes,
00:14:07.000 we all know forest fires are bad. Communicate that to us any way you want. But when lightning strikes
00:14:11.480 are the problem, this action plan needs to say, we are an active plan at the moment for this problem.
00:14:20.840 This is an excellent strategy. What's the emergency plan that we're acting on right now? Well, exactly.
00:14:26.600 You know, I thought when I went would find this, I would find, you know, assess the critical fire areas
00:14:32.040 that have seen fires because, you know, we're seeing, we're seeing again in BC, some of the areas that
00:14:36.760 burnt down last year are burning down again. Yeah. So very similar cities are seeing the same fire hazards,
00:14:43.400 right? So to me, that would be okay. I assess that area as a critical fire area. Therefore, I have to
00:14:49.720 cut under brush. I have to go in, I have to secure, I have to clear, I have to burn. So those would be
00:14:56.120 the things that I'd be seeing. So number one, where are the critical issues? Where do people live in
00:15:00.760 those communities? How do I protect those communities? Do those communities have fire departments? You
00:15:05.720 know, have I bought more water bombers? Have I placed water bombers adjacent to those communities?
00:15:11.800 Do my satellite tracking show where fires are popping up? And how do I move fire bombers towards new fires?
00:15:17.960 Like to me, I was, I thought I would see a kind of a very action plan for now. Yeah. An action plan
00:15:23.560 for today, not kind of still a lobby group with a plan for five years, right? That would kind of address
00:15:29.720 this. And quite frankly, I actually thought that there would be a communication when this was going
00:15:36.440 on. So I find it interesting, right? We've, we kind of hear, which is again, maybe a Canadian thing,
00:15:43.640 as you mentioned, I hear after, you know, I had to evacuate, you know, and then there's a good news
00:15:50.280 story of the evacuation group that we sent to the Canada's Wonderland, or we sent somewhere,
00:15:56.840 which is nice. I'm glad they're treating the people nicely. They're having a okay time because
00:16:01.480 it's a tough, stressful time when they have to evacuate, right? You're hearing stories also of
00:16:07.080 people's homes being pillaged when they leave to go up from the fire, and they can't go back to see if
00:16:11.560 their homes are still there and not robbed. So those aren't good either, right? So, but,
00:16:16.440 you know, I thought that we would be at the place where we would be saying, you know, we address this
00:16:22.440 issue, and the fires are moving in the direction that we have planned. Right? So, you know, our
00:16:30.280 communities, i.e., we've actually clear cut those communities within two miles of every residence. Right.
00:16:36.040 You know, now, people go, oh my god, you're going to cut a tree. Okay, here's the option. Your community
00:16:42.520 burns down or you cut some trees, right? I know that from the people who are green advocates, I
00:16:48.200 understand they don't love the idea. But, you know, those people who live in those communities can easily
00:16:53.720 go for a forest walk within 10 minutes. Exactly. If you cut within two miles to keep their homes. For sure. Right. Yeah, it's,
00:17:00.920 it's, it's a safety factor, not an aesthetic thing at that, at that point. And if you live in those
00:17:05.000 areas, you need to understand that's part of life. Yeah. Because you're trying to be protected.
00:17:08.600 I think the next thing we need to do is trying to get some, and the last thing we want to do is pull
00:17:12.200 anybody away from one of these fires. But our intention over the next couple of weeks
00:17:15.880 is to dig one layer deeper on this and find out some of the answers to these questions. Yeah. Because,
00:17:21.560 you know. Who? Yeah. Who's responsible? Right. Where are they? What are they doing at the moment?
00:17:30.360 What's the current plan? Yeah. What's the current plan? What's the future plan? What do we do to
00:17:34.840 mitigate this, right? If it is climate control, right? How? And then quite frankly, we got a budget
00:17:41.720 coming up. Where are the resources? That's what I would love to know. Have we put resources toward this
00:17:47.560 issue that is so big and so ignored by everybody except for our neighbors who hate the ash and smoke
00:17:53.160 and pollution? We're not getting the fire under control. And we hope to do that. Let's find out
00:17:59.400 more about that next time. Thanks so much for being here. Subscribe. Tell a friend. And only you
00:18:06.280 can prevent forest fires. I just wanted to say that. Well done. Thanks.