Despite the Liberals claiming climate change is causing an increase in forest fires, stats from the Natural Resources department show blazes in northern Canada are no more frequent than they were in the 19th Century..“The decline in fire frequency is due to a decline in human-caused ignitions,” said a department study, adding: “The current rate of burning is still lower than historic levels.”.Data included wildfires in northern British Columbia and Alberta and the southern belt of the Northwest Territories..“The boreal forest of northwestern Canada had a historical fire return interval of 50 to 100 years,” said the report..“Fire frequency in Canada’s northwestern boreal forest began to decline in the mid-19th Century because of fire suppression, reaching a low about every 300 years in the second half of the 20th Century.”.Humans were to blame for most wildfires in northern Canada, “about 54%,” wrote researchers. Since the 19th Century “there were fewer anthropogenic fires,” said the report compiled by the Canadian Forest Service..The latest study follows Department of Environment claims that climate change was to blame for the worst forest fires in Canadian history. The findings cited in a 2018 report were based on climate modelling and data on fires that occurred after 1950..“Climate change greatly increased the likelihood of extreme warm temperatures and high fire risk,” the environment department wrote in its study..“Risk factors affecting the event, and the area burned itself, were made substantially greater by anthropogenic climate change,” said the study..“It can be inferred that extreme warm conditions along with extreme dryness that contribute to high wildfire potential were made more likely by anthropogenic influence on the climate.".The study said conclusions were “based on an observational record beginning in 1950.”.The environment department report omitted the worst documented forest fire in Canadian history — the 1950 Chinchaga Firestorm that started with a lightning strike at Whispering Pines Lake, BC. It destroyed five million acres in neighbouring Alberta..Cabinet has blamed forest fires on climate change..“We’re seeing the impacts of climate change across the country,” then Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said in 2019..“In the West you see these extreme forest fires.”
