Across Much Of Canada, Fires Seem To Be Outpacing Forests' Ability To Regenerate

[hatrack]

EDIT

More than 200 fires burned across Canada as of Saturday, their smoke sweeping across oceans and continents. More than 80 of them are burning “out of control,” according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Fire is part of the Canadian landscape. Millions of acres can burn each year, and the country’s native plants are hardwired to endure the effects of wildfire — to an extent.

But — as is the case with most wildfire-prone areas — drier conditions and warmer weather due to climate change are making these fires more frequent and hotter. “You’ve got too many fires in close succession,” said Marc-André Parisien, a wildfire research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service. “The trees just kind of can’t keep up.”

It depends on what kind of tree is facing fire. The white spruce, an evergreen that can grow more than 180 feet tall, doesn’t fare as well in fire-filled environments, said Ellen Whitman, also a fire research scientist with the Forest Service. Other trees, such as the jack pine and the lodgepole pine, are more resilient to fire, she said, but young trees are often the weakest after a blaze. “If you burn that young stand before it has cones, or before it has enough cones, the regeneration will be very poor,” Whitman said.

In 2023, record-breaking fires tore through the country, burning more than 45 million acres in all 13 provinces and territories. The following year brought more conflagrations, including a blaze in Alberta that burned more than 80,000 acres of Jasper National Park, famous for its alpine lakes and thick forests. Months later the trees were still charred, but new greenery had begun to grow, Landon Shepherd of Parks Canada told CTV last year.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/07/11/canada-wildfire-smoke-forests-landscape-change/

[markodochartaigh]

1. It's because the climate and thus the biome are changing.

Much of this area won't be regenerating forest, because with the changing climate the area is no longer suitable for forest.

[CrispyQ]

2. The superior, rich men, whose policies brought us here, will be kings of a burned out heap.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Sadly frogs are apparently smarter than humans

Any frog with a brain will jump out of heating water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#Experiments_and_analysis

Experiments and analysis

During the 19th century, several experiments were performed to observe the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C.

…

[CrispyQ]

7. I've always wondered about that, but regarding the experiment,

how does a frog without a brain survive anything?

[AloeVera]

3. Heartbreaking. Oh Canada....

N/T

[Bev54]

4. The fires are in our northern regions in a lot of cases and some of them are man made

They have not had much rain in those areas for a few years, which is unusual and I remember reading, probably about a year ago, that the melting of the icebergs had a lot to do with our changing weather in Canada. Climate change is being experienced here everyday. In our area of southern Alberta, they are calling for storms and more rain this weekend than in the last 3 months and we have had a lot of rain already this spring. I will wait and see, the one thing here is, they are really bad a predicting the weather.

[Clouds Passing]

5. 🌎 😢