Trees Company Blog
Canada Is Burning: 5 Key Takeaways from Forest Canada’s Wildfire Webinar
Posted: 2025.07.23
With over 5.7 milion hectares already burned in 2025 (as of July 21), Canada is once again facing a record-breaking wildfire season.
To better understand why and how wildfires continue to happen across the country as well as regions around the globe, Forests Canada brought together four experts to share their knowledge in a our recent webinar Canada is Burning: What you need to know. Moderated by our CEO Jess Kaknevicius, the guest panel featured:
Here are a few highlights from that discussion:
1. The important role of forest management in reducing wildfire risk.
Forest management plays a critical role in mitigating the impacts of wildfire by reducing fuels, creating firebreaks, and planting trees in a way that decreases future wildfire risk.
The importance of technology and the need for good data to inform decision-making was echoed by all panelists, with Dr. Yan Boulanger also noting the inclusion of AI and its role in complementing existing efforts, helping to identify and explore scenarios, and supporting ongoing forest management strategies.
A better understanding of Indigenous fire stewardship and ongoing collaboration with Indigenous groups and communities was also expressed as essential to actively manage long-term forest health and resiliency.
2. What is Indigenous fire stewardship? Traditional fire practices and their ecological impact.
Indigenous fire stewardship refers to culturally significant practices of using fire to manage landscapes and resources. Rooted in Indigenous knowledge and traditions, this practice considers many factors, including the health and longevity of natural landscapes, cultural values, ecosystem interconnectedness, and community wellbeing. As panellist Joshua Mitchell explained, these practices were once banned, contributing to today’s fire-prone landscapes due to the massive buildup of fuels.
Thankfully, Indigenous fire stewardship has become more widely recognized and understood for its leadership in offering essential solutions, including fire prevention and mitigation, that have proved effective since time immemorial. And while Indigenous fire stewardship is often labelled as “traditional,” many consider this misleading because the underlying knowledge is modern and adaptable to today’s fire regimes. It includes techniques such as cultural burning, i.e., the deliberate and controlled use of fire to maintain healthy ecosystems, manage vegetation to reduce fuel buildup, and promote biodiversity.
Lastly, panellists underscored that collaborative efforts, such as fire guardian programs and Indigenous-led firefighting teams, are helping to weave together Indigenous knowledge with Western science to create resilient forests and communities across Canada.
3. What does coexisting with fire mean—and why does it matter in a changing climate?
As we have seen over the last few years, a warming climate means more frequent, intense, and widespread fires. Canada is experiencing longer fire seasons, more extreme fire danger days, and greater impacts on communities and ecosystems alike. Drought and insect outbreaks like the mountain pine beetle are killing trees and increasing the amount of dry fuel in the landscape, creating the perfect conditions for large, destructive fires.
Coexisting with fire means accepting fire as a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem rather than perceiving it solely as a threat. Contrary to popular belief, fire plays a positive role by renewing forests, supporting biodiversity, and restoring ecological balance. To coexist with this phenomenon, we must rethink how we manage forests, shifting from complete suppression to an adaptive approach that focuses on prescribed burns, cultural fire practices, and strategic fuel management.
It also requires a whole-of-society effort, from homeowners creating defensible space to local governments investing in FireSmart strategies and emergency preparedness. As Dr. Lori Daniels noted during the webinar, this shift will take decades, not years, but it’s essential for creating climate-resilient landscapes and communities. Fire isn’t going away, so we need to live with it.
4. What’s causing more wildfires? The role of climate change and fire suppression.
What’s the culprit behind Canada’s ever-growing wildfire risk: climate change or fire suppression? Answer: it’s both. As the webinar panellists explained, the interaction between a warming climate and past fire-suppression practices has created the perfect storm for today’s large, destructive fires.
Climate change is driving hotter and drier conditions, which are leading to longer fire seasons, drier fuels, and more extreme fire behaviour. But decades of aggressively fighting fires—especially small, low-intensity ones—has backfired. By extinguishing 90% of fires, particularly ones that burned in cooler, wetter seasons, we’ve allowed forests to accumulate fuel and become overly dense and homogenous.
This dynamic is what’s known as the fire-suppression paradox (or wildfire paradox): the more we put out fires, the more we set the table for bigger fires later.
5. How can we help mitigate wildfires and support fire-resilient communities and forests?
Everyone has a role to play in wildfire management and resilience, from homeowners and researchers to Indigenous leaders and government agencies. Indeed, our shifting climate demands community-level action more than ever.
As panellist Kelsey Winter highlighted during the webinar, “Wildfire is more frequent and part of life in Canada—but it doesn’t have to be a disaster. As Canadians, we really all have a role to play in building wildfire resilience. And that starts with knowing your local risks, preparing your home, and having a plan in place.”
Programs like FireSmart Canada provide homeowners with simple yet effective steps to reduce wildfire risk, such as clearing brush, creating defensible space, and developing a wildfire evacuation plan for their household. In addition, interdisciplinary research such as Natural Resources Canada’s Reciprocity, Ecology and Diversity in fire Lab is leading the way in recognizing and respecting Indigenous Peoples’ expertise as an equal and valid approach to understanding fire on the landscape.
Lastly, you can lobby your municipal, provincial and federal government representatives to invest in long-term wildfire resilience, especially in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, which comprise approximately 5% of Canada’s population, yet account for 42% of wildfire evacuations These regions are often surrounded by forested landscapes but lack the tools, training, and year-round firefighting personnel to respond effectively.
Conclusion: Learning to Live with Fire.
The overarching message from the webinar is that we must learn to live with fire, and there is room for optimism. Fire has always been and will always be part of the landscape. We can make our forests more resilient through better research, adaptive forest management, and smarter planning around critical infrastructure. At the same time, each of us can take meaningful action by preparing our homes, creating defensible spaces, discussing risks and readiness with our neighbours, and building community awareness around fire.
Communities across Canada are embracing FireSmart practices, Indigenous fire stewardship is gaining long-overdue recognition, and policies are beginning to reflect the urgency of this moment. Indeed, we are seeing more collaboration across sectors, businesses, Indigenous communities, provinces and territories—a “whole-of-society" approach—that was often discussed during the webinar.
Please click on the links below to watch our webinar in English or French: