Canada’s Wildfire Crisis： What’s Being Done and What Needs to Change？
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Summary
The fires in Canada are out of control, and there are no signs of stopping. What could be the root cause? Is it climate change? Or is it something else? In this episode, Paul and I discuss what we think about the fires, and the potential link between them and climate change.
Transcript
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Okay, well here we are at the end of the summer and it has been a long hot summer
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full of smoke and fires across Canada. Total number of wildfires 5,071 as of
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September 3rd. Area burned roughly 8.32 million hectares and it's the second
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worst season on record. Active forest fires across the country are causing
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problems in Canada and to our neighbors all around us. Today we're going to
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address wildfires in Canada. Well, you heard the stats. Paul Micucci, thanks for
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joining me. Let's talk about this. We are on fire and it seems like we're not doing
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anything about it. No, no. You know, I was, again, I was astounded when I looked at the
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map and I saw all the dots and as you look at this map, it's absolutely insane of the
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number of wildfires that are out of control. So the purple dots on the map
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show you where they're out of control. Now, you know, I want to put a little bit in
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context because we haven't talked about it. Fires are natural. They're, you know, the
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combustion and they happen every year and they've happened forever, right? I mean,
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it's not something new. We never really heard about it because fires would come
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and then they would go for a while, then they would burn out with rain, you know,
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the dew, the climate change, everything else. But, and as it got colder coming out of the
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summer, this year, you know, these things hit a, hit a, what, second worst year ever?
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They say this is the second worst forest fires on record. Yeah. So, you know, this is, and,
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you know, last year wasn't good either. So we had a couple of years really bad, you know,
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and, and the size of these are becoming even bigger. So before we were talking about it,
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what are the size of this, like the massive fires in comparison to, well, if you put it in comparison
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to like, uh, uh, the, the number of hectares, it's bigger than many European countries. And it's
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about the same size as Costa Rica, just the portion that is on fire now. The Costa Rica that Donald Trump
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loves. Right. Sorry. We're setting it alight here in Canada. Oh man. So that's the size of it. So
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there, there you go. And you raise these other implications that come with it. We've, you know,
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our neighbors to the South have been inundated with the ash and smoke and pollution issues.
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They're not happy about that. No, not at all. To the North, you pointed out it's, it's having more,
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uh, or, uh, environmental impact. Yeah. The glaciers are covered with ash. And quite frankly,
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some of the scientists are saying that the ash is making the glaciers melt faster. Right.
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Wow. So, which isn't good for anyone, you know, water levels, uh, the environment. So,
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so not a good outcome. And, and, you know, it leads us to what is the number one, what is the root cause?
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Um, right. What do you think? Well, a couple of things I think, uh, first and foremost, and I'm,
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you know, that I hate to talk on this topic because I feel uneducated about it and a little bit sore about
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it because of how we've been taxed on it. But environmentally speaking, things are changing.
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There is a climate change that's contributing to the amount of lightning we're getting, how dry the
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forests are. And, and, and that just may be a fact of life. You know, I don't know what causes climate
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change. I think personally, the, the, uh, jury is out on that among, uh, among humanity. However,
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the effects of it are real. And I think that this is one of the effects that we're seeing.
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Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, you know, climate change is one of those ones that, you know, people debate
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back and forth. So, you know, I, I not sure I'm totally convinced, but, but, you know,
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the other thing I would like to, I'm not sure I'm convinced humans have caused the problem and that
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we can fix it or that it's just a secular issue with this planet. Yeah, it could be. And, you know,
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have we, so this is an interesting thing. So when we turned to a green, let's call it green economy.
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So when we said to ourselves, let's stop cutting. So let's take my neighborhood for example,
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because I think it's interesting. I grew up when I grew up, the trees were manicured,
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the bushes were cut, the grass and the parks were cut. Uh, when I went up to the cottage, right? The,
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the highways were all trimmed, right? The side of the highways were trimmed, the forests were trimmed
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back, right? The underbrush was cut. Uh, people did slow burns throughout, you know, we had a cottage
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in Minden, Halliburton. Yeah. They did control burns quite often. Quite often. I remember, I remember
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as a kid with my grandfather, uh, he bought a, uh, a point, which was part swamp and he did an infill,
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he built cottages and we would do slow burns, uh, you know, to take care of the brush around the
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cottages as we were building, uh, for safety and security, right? So somewhere along the way,
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we just stopped. It's amazing. We heard, uh, Donald Trump at one point say, we need to clean the forest.
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Yeah. And everybody laughed, but it was a constant. Certainly in Canada, we had forestry,
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uh, departments in every province. We had an eye on it at a federal level. Now it feels like we're
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just ignoring the fire right in the middle of our country, the size of Costa Rica. And I don't
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understand. Well, did you have, no, I agree. And, and did we, so as these think about it for a minute
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and those, you know, I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of it, but think about your own
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life, right? As your trees in your yard grow, they grow so big, they become so dense and then,
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you know, storms knock them down, they fall. So you're in the middle of the wilderness,
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you know, in the forest that's happening organically and everything's compiling on top of each other.
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So as you know, trees are becoming weaker and older, they're falling down and then forces are
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becoming more dense. No, one's going into these forces and doing anything. So as we get warm or warmer,
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in your case, if climate is climate challenges are an issue, then that's where combustion happens.
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And also, you know, we're learning more, I kind of funny when preparing for this show,
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I never knew that quite frankly, this year was one of the first years that we finally got a handle on
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what causes lightning. I was like, I thought we always knew what caused lightning.
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No, apparently scientists are finally coming to the conclusion on what causes lightning, which
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for another show is probably a whole show we can bring someone in on.
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Now, if we can control it, we could take over the world.
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But, you know, lightning around the world, 50 to 100 times every second,
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lightning hits the earth. So quite frankly, you know, in places like Africa and that,
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they have huge amount of lightning strikes because of the cold and the heat coming together.
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But, you know, we do too, quite frankly, we have issues here with mountains and mountain ranges,
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So we have the same issue, of course, but, but, you know, that that is combining or
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with the combustion and the lightning is always going to be happening. So.
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Well, the good news is we've ordered some bombers, some additional water bombers.
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Well, a bunch of the, a bunch of the ones that we have, have gone overseas. That is for sure.
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Some of them have gone to California, but the water bombers that we have ordered,
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which we desperately need to arrive in Winnipeg, should be ready 2031.
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If you, if you're burning, uh, forests, the size of Costa Rica every year for six years,
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I don't know. You know, I'm not a, you know, I have to do the math, but quite frankly,
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that seems like a lot of land. We're going to be not only that burning through.
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Aren't we one of the greatest suppliers of oxygen to the planet, our forests? I mean,
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what are we doing to the planet overall to let this burn? If you really want to think about the
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environment on a global level, let's stop these fires as soon as we can.
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Well, yeah, it makes sense. And it, it takes, uh, what?
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How many hundreds of years for this, for a burnt forest to restore?
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I think it's over 110 years on average for a pine forest to reforestate, but you can't just have,
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uh, pines growing. You need a, a mix of, uh, of, uh, horticulture and, and, uh, ground cover.
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All of this sort of stuff is completely gone. Uh, and you're right. So now we have a hole in the
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middle of Canada for how long? Yeah. And what happens in that time as the environment changes?
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I think that what we need to do, and if we can take a look at the, uh, the map is,
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I think we have a map that we can throw up. The amount of forest fires that we're seeing on this
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map across our country is absolutely stunning. And the ones in pink are burning out of control.
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Yeah. This is the biggest, this is bigger than an epidemic. This is an epidemic of flame.
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Yeah. That's shutting down, uh, well, look what it did last year. It, it shut down a major tourist
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area in Western Canada, um, in Alberta. It's taking out a huge chunk of, uh, of the forest that is our
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natural preserved lands, Northern Canada. My, my friends in St. John's actually, uh, had their
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luggage packed most of the summer because they were waiting for the fire to come over the ridge,
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um, and take out their house. And the funny thing is I, I spent a lot of time in St. John's with them.
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And, uh, it's not that far outside of the city. That's the scary part of it. I was like, wow.
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If you take a look at it, same with Nova Scotia. I mean, you get outside of the, you leave the
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airport, you're in the middle of the woods until you get to the city and it's just outside the city.
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So yeah, I mean, just the smoke impact and the, the environmental issues that you would have,
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uh, butting up against these cities, it has to stop.
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Well, we, you know what, we, we made some calls, so we called around and we tried to get ahold of
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people and I get it. They're busy with, with these many fires going on. I'm sure they had more to do
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than, uh, to talk to us today, but you know, I dug around, I said, there's gotta be an action plan
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and there's gotta be a group of people on a federal level that's responsible for this. So I came across
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the Canadian council of forest ministers and they had, they do have an action plan,
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So there is a working group on this and they have an action plan. And I said, okay, great. You know,
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cause there's gotta be some really, um, interesting things in here. So I flipped through and, uh, I came
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to a six point action plan. So, and I just wanted to go through. So the first one is to enhance whole
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of government collaboration and governance to strengthen resilience. Okay. Okay. Great.
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The second one is to improve understanding of wild land fire risks in all sectors of society.
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Okay. Okay. So I got, wow. So those are two things.
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Third one, prioritize whole of government prevention and mitigation activities.
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Oh, that means. So convince people it's important. Oh, right. That's number three on the list.
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Convince people this is important. Okay. Number four, enhance wild land fire preparedness,
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response capacity and coordination and foster development of new capabilities.
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Okay. Well, we do need some new capabilities. That's for sure. Right. So fifth one,
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strengthen recovery efforts to increase resilience and minimize the impacts of future fireland,
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wild land fires. And six, advance the next generation of wild land fire management, science,
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innovation and research. Okay. Okay. So you know what all good buzzwords, you know, and I'm not being
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critical. I'm sure these gentlemen and ladies and gentlemen are trying as hard as they can, but you
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know, it sure as heck sounds to me that they're fighting this as a kind of a losing battle. And it also
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feels like they're lobbyists and they have to be on their own behalf. And they're basically creating
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a working group to try to convince people this is important. Why? So, you know, we saw what happened
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in LA and this is what kind of blows my mind a little about this issue. We saw that mayor, remember the
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mayor, you know, the, uh, the president was attacking the mayor for going on vacation, coming back, no
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communication plan. This Palisades burns down and it's a mess, right? Are we waiting for something
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like this to happen? Are we waiting for a major city to catch fire? Because it sure seems like we
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are doing a lot of kind of general buzzword lobbying, you know, kind of, you know, nice, happy work groups.
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Like I'm thinking at this point when the fires are getting the size of Costa Rica, we should have
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already been past that, right? Like we should have been like, this is really important. Well, yeah,
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we need to allocate a big budget to this. We need to have dedicated crews. We need to kind of like
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we're doing with crime a little bit with police forces. We need to double our resources. And quite
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frankly, we need to take some of the monies we're sending abroad and keep it here and tackle this in our
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own country. Again, I hate to harp on it. I sound every time we meet, but domestic issues, right? Isn't this a
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big domestic issue that we should be going at? Oh, 100%. And the other thing to kind of
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cap all of this off is if we are not taking care of, if this plan is not in effect already and doing
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something, it feels very Canadian to me. It feels 10 years late. Yeah, it feels very, this plan feels to
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me like it has more to do with communicating with humanity than actually getting a job done. Yes,
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we all know forest fires are bad. Communicate that to us any way you want. But when lightning strikes
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are the problem, this action plan needs to say, we are an active plan at the moment for this problem.
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This is an excellent strategy. What's the emergency plan that we're acting on right now? Well, exactly.
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You know, I thought when I went would find this, I would find, you know, assess the critical fire areas
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that have seen fires because, you know, we're seeing, we're seeing again in BC, some of the areas that
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burnt down last year are burning down again. Yeah. So very similar cities are seeing the same fire hazards,
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right? So to me, that would be okay. I assess that area as a critical fire area. Therefore, I have to
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cut under brush. I have to go in, I have to secure, I have to clear, I have to burn. So those would be
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the things that I'd be seeing. So number one, where are the critical issues? Where do people live in
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those communities? How do I protect those communities? Do those communities have fire departments? You
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know, have I bought more water bombers? Have I placed water bombers adjacent to those communities?
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Do my satellite tracking show where fires are popping up? And how do I move fire bombers towards new fires?
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Like to me, I was, I thought I would see a kind of a very action plan for now. Yeah. An action plan
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for today, not kind of still a lobby group with a plan for five years, right? That would kind of address
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this. And quite frankly, I actually thought that there would be a communication when this was going
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on. So I find it interesting, right? We've, we kind of hear, which is again, maybe a Canadian thing,
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as you mentioned, I hear after, you know, I had to evacuate, you know, and then there's a good news
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story of the evacuation group that we sent to the Canada's Wonderland, or we sent somewhere,
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which is nice. I'm glad they're treating the people nicely. They're having a okay time because
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it's a tough, stressful time when they have to evacuate, right? You're hearing stories also of
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people's homes being pillaged when they leave to go up from the fire, and they can't go back to see if
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their homes are still there and not robbed. So those aren't good either, right? So, but,
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you know, I thought that we would be at the place where we would be saying, you know, we address this
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issue, and the fires are moving in the direction that we have planned. Right? So, you know, our
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communities, i.e., we've actually clear cut those communities within two miles of every residence. Right.
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You know, now, people go, oh my god, you're going to cut a tree. Okay, here's the option. Your community
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burns down or you cut some trees, right? I know that from the people who are green advocates, I
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understand they don't love the idea. But, you know, those people who live in those communities can easily
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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,
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it's, it's a safety factor, not an aesthetic thing at that, at that point. And if you live in those
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areas, you need to understand that's part of life. Yeah. Because you're trying to be protected.
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I think the next thing we need to do is trying to get some, and the last thing we want to do is pull
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anybody away from one of these fires. But our intention over the next couple of weeks
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is to dig one layer deeper on this and find out some of the answers to these questions. Yeah. Because,
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you know. Who? Yeah. Who's responsible? Right. Where are they? What are they doing at the moment?
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What's the current plan? Yeah. What's the current plan? What's the future plan? What do we do to
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mitigate this, right? If it is climate control, right? How? And then quite frankly, we got a budget
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coming up. Where are the resources? That's what I would love to know. Have we put resources toward this
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issue that is so big and so ignored by everybody except for our neighbors who hate the ash and smoke
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and pollution? We're not getting the fire under control. And we hope to do that. Let's find out
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more about that next time. Thanks so much for being here. Subscribe. Tell a friend. And only you
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can prevent forest fires. I just wanted to say that. Well done. Thanks.