Canada’s 2025 wildfire season a wake-up call—more populated areas are under threat
Summer for former Brampton councillor Elaine Moore and her husband Randy has been a time to relax at the Kawartha Lakes cottage they have enjoyed for more than 13 years.
This year, that changed.
On August 9, Moore received a message from her sisters, who live in Peel, asking how she was coping with the wildfire near Burnt River, just ten kilometres from her cottage. They had spotted warnings in local Facebook groups.
“They asked how were we doing with the wildfires, and I was like ‘what wildfires?’,” she tells The Pointer.
Within the first two weeks of August, following multiple weeks under a heat dome and extended high temperature warnings across the province, four wildfires broke out in Kawartha Lakes.
The first ignited near Moore’s cottage on August 9 in the Burnt River area, with approximately 27 hectares still actively burning as of August 14.
“The fire is burning in a heavily wooded area, where ice storm damage has left hazardous terrain that makes hose deployment especially challenging,” local officials reported in a press release.
On August 5, Kawartha Lakes Fire Rescue Service issued a Total Burn Ban across the municipality due to the ongoing lack of precipitation and extremely dry conditions.
(City of Kawartha Lakes)
A second fire began on August 11 in the Kirkfield area. Initially a grass fire covering five hectares, it quickly spread to 33.5 hectares by August 12.
Several southern Ontario municipalities, including Caledon, St. Catharines, Oshawa, Aurora and Newmarket, declared total burn bans the same week, “given the hot and dry conditions which can cause fire to spread fast”. People were also asked not to fly their drones within nine kilometres of any fire for safety reasons.
“Given the current weather conditions and the lack of significant rain, we need to take precautions to prevent large fires and protect the health, safety and air quality of our communities,” Central York Fire Services (CYFS) Fire Chief Rocco Volpe said in a statement on August 11.
Some worried that strong winds could worsen wildfire conditions as Environment Canada issued a forecast warning on August 11 predicting damaging gusts up to 100 kilometers per hour (km/h) and 40-60 millimeters (mm) of rain, with flash flooding risks, for August 12, in Ontario’s “B” yellow region, which includes Toronto, London, Barrie, Windsor, Sarnia, Kitchener, Waterloo, Owen Sound, Guelph, Orillia, Collingwood, Midland, St. Thomas, and surrounding communities. The “A” region, which includes Kawartha Lakes, was expected to experience wind gusts up to 80 km/h alongside similar rainfall.
(Environment and Climate Change Canada)
On August 13, rain and cooler temperatures brought some relief. By the next day, the fire in the Burnt River area was classified as “being held”. The Head Lake fire, which began on August 8 and affected 4.5 hectares, was declared “under control” by Kawartha Lakes Fire and Rescue.
The Kirkfield fire, however, remained “out of control” as firefighters and water bombers continued efforts to contain it, and was only classified as “being held” on August 15.
“It has been a challenging operation, and we continue to work to suppress within the 27 hectare boundary,” Kawartha Lakes Fire Service deputy chief Jeff Bignell said in a statement.
Moore says her neighbours, who have lived in the Burnt River area for over 30 years, “don’t recall anything like this”.
The City of Kawartha Lakes asked residents to “have an emergency plan and a 72-hour emergency kit” ready.
"Packing a go-bag looks different for them. We might just be up for a few days, but for them, it’s about more than clothes, they might need to grab things like important documents and other personal valuables they can’t leave behind."
Wildfires are no longer limited to northern parts of Ontario or more remote parts of other provinces; they’re now starting closer to major cities more often, posing a threat to communities closer to the southern border of the country.
On August 14, a new wildfire was reported near the Rosseau area in Muskoka, close to Highway 141, covering 0.3 hectares and was classified as under control by the next day.
Going into the weekend, Ontario faces wildfire risk ranging from low in the north to moderate and high across much of the south, with some southern and eastern areas at very high danger.
Temperatures are rising into the weekend of August 15, and combined with low humidity, they’re driving wildfire danger from moderate to high across much of Southern Ontario, with some areas already at extreme and more expected to reach that level by August 16.
According to the Ontario government, as of August 14, there were 50 active wildfires in Ontario’s Northwest Region, with two not under control, five under control, and 43 being observed. Red Lake 99, northeast of Poplar Hill, remains a fire of note at 30,602 hectares and is not under control, though crews are making progress with rain in the forecast. In the Northeast Region, three new fires were confirmed, including Sudbury 30 and Cochrane 19, both not under control. The region has 19 active fires, with fire hazard levels ranging from low to extreme, particularly in Bancroft, Deep River, Petawawa, and Pembroke.
“This is only going to continue. This is the new normal,” Ontario Nature conservation director Tony Morris told The Pointer.
“Climate change is making things like this more intense, more likely and more frequent.”
Canada’s 2025 wildfire season is already the second-worst on record, surpassed only by the catastrophic 2023 season, when more than 17.2 million hectares of land were scorched, an area larger than the United Kingdom, more than 230,000 people were forced to evacuate, and the insured damages from wildfires approached $1 billion.
This year, by August 2 alone, wildfires had already burned over 7.3 million hectares nationally, an area larger than the entire Greater Toronto Area. That’s more than double the 10-year average for this time of year, according to the latest data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) and Natural Resources Canada.
Natural Resources Canada notes as of August 13, the number of fires is about average for this time of year, but the area burned to date is significantly more than the 10-year average. There were 83 number of fires started by lightning over the last week.
(Map: Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, Table: Natural Resources Canada)
Manitoba and Saskatchewan account for more than half the area burned so far, but British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are all also well above their 25-year averages.
United Nations experts have pointed to “a warm, dry winter and spring, with temperatures more than 2.5 degrees Celsius above average.”
By early June, more than 2.7 million hectares had already burned, an area roughly 150 times larger than the 2025 Los Angeles fires, where blazes devastated residential neighbourhoods.
The fires triggered widespread social disruption, forcing the evacuation of more than 33,000 people, including the entire community of Flin Flon, Manitoba, with two civilian lives lost.
In June, the U.S. National Interagency Coordination Center deployed federal firefighting crews to help combat wildfires in Manitoba, Canada, under a cross-border assistance agreement between the two countries that has been in place since 1982.
(U.S. National Interagency Fire Center/Wiki)
The scale of the disaster extended far beyond Canada’s borders. On a single day, wildfire smoke exposed over 117 million people in the United States and two million in Canada to hazardous air quality.
By August 13, there were 708 active wildfires across Canada, with 158 classified as out of control. Manitoba alone had the highest number, with 157 active fires.
In June, provincial leaders including Ontario premier Doug Ford called on the federal government for more national support, warning that provinces can no longer manage wildfire season alone.
"We do need that national strategy to make sure that when issues like this happen, we have the resources, we have the water bombers," Ford said during a press conference.
He noted Ontario had ordered six new water bombers, but due to global backlogs, they likely won’t arrive until 2029 or 2031.
"Ontario has about 11 bombers. We ordered another six more water bombers … the problem is right now they're backlogged," he added.
That same month, the union representing Ontario’s wildfire pilots criticized the Ford government for offering low wages and failing to address staffing shortages. Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/SEFPO) said the government’s promises of new planes gave the “appearance of investment with no substance.”
A few days after OPSEU/SEFPO's statement, the PC government slashed emergency wildfire funding by $42 million, with a $3.8 million cut from the budget for emergency preparedness and response.
By mid-August, Ontario reported 68 active fires, bringing its total to 467 for the year, already far surpassing the 275 fires recorded in all of 2024.
“The forests had all these dead trees from the pine beetle outbreak. That's called a positive feedback loop, because the pine beetle outbreak was caused by global warming. Ask our former right wing British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, who figured it out that the usually the pine beetle is killed in a winter cold snap that it gets to -35. That does it. That stops that pest…we lost an area of interior British Columbia forest, two times the size of Sweden because of global warming. It was the first major multiillion dollar impact from the climate crisis,” Green Party leader Elizabeth May said during an emergency debate at Parliament Hill in June.
(Elizabeth May/X)
“What we are witnessing is not just a series of isolated incidents, but a glimpse into a new, fire-prone reality shaped by human activities and climate change,” United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) director Kaveh Madani said at the launch of a new report titled ‘The 2025 Central Canada Fires as of June 8: National Challenges of a Warming Climate and Cascading International Impacts.’
“The scale of these fires and their transboundary impacts are a wake-up call. We must recognize this as the increasing trend of large-scale burning in Canada requires a fundamental shift in our preparedness, response, and, most critically, our global commitment to deal with climate change.”
The UN report draws a direct line between the fire’s ferocity and the unmistakable imprint of climate change, a force that is stretching fire seasons longer and sharpening the dry, volatile conditions that turn forests into tinderboxes and ordinary flames into unstoppable infernos.
At the end of July, 71 percent of the country was classified as Abnormally Dry (D0) or Moderate to Extreme Drought (D1 to D3), including 71 percent of the country's agricultural landscape.
(Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)
As previously reported by The Pointer, by the end of May, more than half of Canada was experiencing abnormal dryness or moderate to extreme drought, with 38 percent of the Central Region, which includes Ontario and Quebec, affected and one percent of its farmland directly impacted, a recent Canadian Drought Report from the federal Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Food found.
“Exceptionally low spring precipitation, above normal temperatures and drying conditions have resulted in poor soil moisture, poor pasture and crop conditions and well above normal wildfire activity,” the report highlights.
Current conditions show significant drought stress and heightened fire risk across much of southern and eastern Ontario. The fuel moisture map (above) indicates large swaths of the province, particularly around Ottawa, Sudbury, and extending into eastern Ontario, are experiencing moderate to very high fire danger, with pockets of extreme risk. The drought intensity map (below) reinforces this, showing severe to exceptional moisture deficits concentrated in these same areas, as well as in parts of central Ontario and the Toronto region. These dry conditions point to vegetation being highly flammable, increasing the likelihood that any ignition could lead to fast-spreading wildfires.
(Windy)
Those conditions created the perfect environment for wildfire activity, and they persisted through the end of July and into August.
Entomologist Sandy Smith told The Pointer that, on the whole, Ontario's forests are relatively healthy, which is why the province has experienced fewer wildfires compared to the West, East, and the Prairies.
“I think it’s (wildfires) increasing partly because of climatic changes that put stress on those landscapes, kill trees, cause them or cause them to decline slowly. It doesn't usually kill them outright. It's just slow die back which creates more fuel,” Smith explained.
In Ontario, there have been some localized outbreaks, like the Jack Pine budworm in the northwest and budworm in the northeast, but "these have been relatively minor and haven't caused widespread mortality like the mountain pine beetle in BC."
She notes some areas are more vulnerable to fire due to other factors like "blowdowns from winter storms, severe hail, or flooding, which can weaken trees and make them more susceptible to burning."
In the Kawartha Lakes region, which was hit hard by an ice storm in March, downed trees, fallen branches, and piles of wood chips from debris cleanup have combined with ongoing drought and recent thunderstorms to create ideal conditions for ignition, turning the area into a landscape filled with kindling.
Burnt River area firefighters and Fire Rangers crews at the fire location on August 14. Damage caused by wildfires by August 13 (bottom).
Ontario Forest Fire notes roughly half of all wildland fires in the province are sparked by lightning, with the other half resulting from human activity.
Wildfires have long been a natural part of the Canadian boreal forest’s life cycle, but climate change is driving hotter, drier conditions that are making them more frequent, more severe, and extending the fire season.
Adding fuel to the fire is declining forest health, largely due to industrial logging, which leaves ecosystems more vulnerable to fire.
Canada often presents itself as a global leader in sustainable forestry, citing its membership in the Montréal Process Working Group, an international coalition that oversees 90 percent of the world’s temperate and boreal forests and sets standards for transparent forest health measurement and reporting.
But the country’s own forest reporting falls short of these standards. Experts say the federal government’s The State of Canada’s Forests (SOF) report presents an overly optimistic view of forest conditions by relying on selective data that masks widespread degradation.
A critical analysis of the report titled ‘Advertising or Accountability? A Critical Review of Canada’s State of the Forests Report,’ the SOF counts all tree-covered land, including clearcuts and monoculture plantations, as “forest.” This approach ignores key ecological differences such as forest age, species diversity, and ecological function.
“It mainly just tracks forest area, which basically makes it seem as if clear cuts and old growth are the same,” Ontario Nature’s Tony Morris explained.
Morris says the report’s focus on surface-level metrics, like the number of trees planted, overshadows deeper concerns such as biodiversity loss, caribou habitat destruction, violations of Indigenous rights, and the considerable carbon emissions associated with logging.
Canada’s State of the Forest report not only fails to fulfill Canada’s obligations under the Montreal Process but also lacks the essential information required for a thorough evaluation of forest management outcomes in the country.
(Accountability… or Advertising?)
The SOF report also tends to emphasize “natural” disturbances like wildfires and downplays the role of logging in forest degradation, “even though logging itself drives changes in forest structure and composition and can reduce a forests’ resilience to climate change.”
Experts have noted logging disrupts ecosystems, fragments wildlife habitats, and replaces complex, biodiverse forests with fragile monocultures, conditions that increase wildfire risk and slow post-fire recovery.
Logging in Ontario’s boreal forests is already unsustainable.
A recent peer-reviewed study found forest degradation in northeastern Ontario far exceeds what would occur naturally. Forest management is legally required to emulate natural disturbance patterns, but research shows a system driven more by timber priorities than ecological sustainability; a trend likely to intensify as Mark Carney pushes to bolster Canada’s economy in response to mounting trade and tariff challenges.
Canada’s forest products sector generates $17.1 billion in net trade, with nearly half of export value coming from softwood lumber, newsprint, and northern bleached softwood kraft pulp. Canada is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of softwood lumber, which accounts for 20 percent of the value of Canada’s forest product exports.
(Natural Resources Canada)
Disturbance rates are higher than natural fire regimes, old-growth forests are dwindling, only 22 percent remain compared to 54 percent in intact landscapes, and habitat for species like the boreal caribou and American marten is rapidly disappearing, even in areas designated for their protection.
“What emerges is a picture of forest degradation — not deforestation, but the gradual breakdown of ecological systems in managed forests,” Wildlife Conservation Society Canada senior scientist and president Justina Ray said.
Logging has replaced complex, biodiverse systems with simplified monocultures that burn more easily and recover more slowly after wildfires.
Forest ecologist Sanghyun Kim says heavy herbicide spraying, including glyphosate, is commonly used after logging to protect valuable trees like spruce and pine.
“This is profitable for forestry companies but causes enormous side effects, ecosystem pollution, killing insects and understory plants, and contaminating food chains and water,” Kim told The Pointer.
“Herbicides also reduce biomass, drying out forests and making them more flammable, increasing wildfire risk, which then impacts Southern Ontario’s population. Everything is connected.”
In Southern Ontario, fragmented forests are also threatened by invasive, flammable plants like boxthorn, making them especially vulnerable.
Kim stresses the need for herbicide-free, full-scale reforestation.
“As a forest ecologist, I co-founded MiON Forest to address the urgent need for scalable, effective reforestation,” Sanghyun Kim told The Pointer. “Most tree-planting efforts still rely on hand-planting, 99 percent, in fact, which is slow, costly, and often ineffective, especially as labour shortages increase and climate conditions worsen. That’s why we developed an integrated system using imaging, AI, and the world’s first drone that actually plants live seedlings, not just seeds. Our biodegradable MiON Pots are designed to protect young trees by activating the soil microbiome, helping them survive drought and take root more effectively. Too many reforestation projects fail because they focus on aesthetics or monocultures. At MiON, we prioritize mixed-species, native planting that’s ecologically sound and climate-resilient. We’re currently piloting our system in Northern Ontario, Quebec, and Michigan, and we’ve been fortunate to receive support from McMaster University, government grants, and institutional partners. Our goal is to close the gap between climate targets and real-world action, and turn tree planting into something that actually works at scale.”
(The Forge/McMaster University)
In January, the federal government announced nearly $1 million in funding for reforestation in Ontario’s wildfire-impacted areas. Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson unveiled a $900,000 investment focused on restoring the Ogoki Forest region in northern Ontario with the aim of planting 800,000 native trees and rehabilitating ecosystems damaged by 2023 wildfires.
The project was announced as part of the broader 2 Billion Trees Program, a nationwide effort to restore forests from coast to coast. Restoration work in Ogoki is being led by Ontario-based Integrity Reforestation, with a focus on the areas most severely affected.
With the last three years ranking among the ten worst fire seasons on record, Morris warns that "it's questionable whether the forest can regenerate sufficiently" given the intensity and scale of destruction.
His fears are not in vain. Replanting after wildfires is challenging.
Recovery is driven not only by how much time has passed since the burn, but also by site-specific environmental conditions, particularly soil moisture, which strongly affect which species can return and at what rate, a 2023 study notes.
High-severity fires in dry areas often burn away the entire soil organic layer, leaving exposed mineral soil that favours only certain fast-colonizing plants, while slowing or even preventing the return of slow-growing species like spruce or reindeer lichen, which may take decades to re-establish.
In wetter areas, surviving roots and residual vegetation patches can help some species recover more quickly, but moisture differences can still alter competition, nutrient availability, and temperature, influencing long-term plant community composition. Because species respond differently to these conditions, postfire regeneration is highly variable and often unpredictable, making replanting efforts complex and requiring careful alignment of chosen species with the site’s microenvironmental characteristics.
Therefore, even well-meaning reforestation efforts face major challenges, especially when recovery is hindered by poor data, failing forest regeneration, and unchecked industrial logging, all of which undermine effective policy and ecological restoration.
At the same time, recent provincial legislation like Bill 5 threatens to push Ontario’s forests toward an even more uncertain and fragile future.
“While Bill 5 isn’t forestry-specific, its Special Economic Zones Act provision could create vast areas where laws don’t apply. This might lead to cumulative impacts on forests compounding unchecked,” Morris noted.
“Forestry companies are expected to manage forests sustainably, but with the recent surge in mining, often overlapping forestry lands, the combined stress on forests is significant. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t seem to be assessing forest health through a cumulative impact lens. Both industries greatly affect forests, yet their overlapping impacts aren’t being properly considered in how land use and resource allocations are managed.”
The other challenge is: As Canada’s population grows, more communities are sprawling into fire-prone wildland-urban interface zones, leaving about 12 percent of the population highly exposed to wildfire risks, a 2021 study noted.
Can wildfires occur in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA)?
“I don’t think so,” Canadian Forest Service research scientist Mike Wotton told The Pointer.
“I don’t think we’re looking at full-scale urban wildfires like we see in more remote areas. But you can certainly have fires in places like grasslands or in wooded areas on the outskirts of cities. In the GTA, for example, we get grass fires in the spring, particularly in dry fields. These can definitely spread, but they aren’t the kind of intense fires we see in the north.”
Urban infrastructure, such as roads and buildings, naturally disrupts the spread of fires, making them less likely to escalate. Wotton also notes that ravine systems like the Don Valley have vegetation that could fuel fires, but they’re not typically large enough to cause widespread destruction.
Smith adds that dry weather, human activity, and invasive species do elevate fire risks, but the region's green spaces like the ravine systems help retain moisture, making them less prone to major fires. Still, human negligence, like ignoring fire warnings or causing sparks, remains a key risk factor, she notes.
Both Smith and Wotton agree the GTA may not face severe fire threats like other regions, smaller fires could still affect residential areas. Plus, quicker response times in urban settings help manage these outbreaks before they spread.
The danger posed by fires, especially when fueled by unpredictable winds, was tragically highlighted by the Great Toronto Fire of 1904. Starting at night in the heart of Toronto’s commercial district, the fire spread rapidly despite the cold and blustery conditions. Winds of up to 30 mph, combined with snow flurries, helped fuel the flames, making it nearly impossible to contain. Firefighters from nearby cities, including Buffalo, were called in, but even with such a large response, the fire raged for nearly nine hours, destroying over 100 buildings and causing millions in damages. The winds, which were erratic and fierce, contributed significantly to the destruction, as embers were carried across large sections of the city. This disaster serves as a stark reminder of how unpredictable weather patterns, now becoming more frequent due to climate change, can turn a fire into a catastrophic event, with far-reaching consequences for communities and local economies.
(Top: City of Toronto archives, Middle, Bottom: Government of Ontario archives)
Firefighters in municipalities are typically better equipped to handle residential fires, not wildfires. In areas like Kawartha Lakes, much of the firefighting force is made up of volunteers rather than full-time professionals.
"While volunteer firefighters are essential and know their communities well, we need more full-time staff to handle the growing threats," Former Brampton councillor Elaine Moore said.
Over the past decade, Ontario has seen a dramatic decline in wildland firefighters, down by more than 100. There is a 40 percent turnover rate in aviation and emergency services, leaving the province heavily dependent on inexperienced workers in high-risk roles, a National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) statement highlighted.
Nearly a third of Ontario’s fire aviation fleet is grounded due to a shortage of pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers. Frontline wildland firefighter positions are 14 percent unfilled, and Ontario is short 27 percent of its fire ranger crews.
“We are in an incredible crisis due to climate change, but also due to underfunding and understaffing,” OPSEU/SEFPO president JP Hornick said. “We’ve lost firefighters at the same time that the need for them has increased.”
“Ford's missing in action while Ontario burns. Wildland firefighters warned for years—they’re understaffed and underpaid. Instead of providing them with resources and respect, the government is still playing games with their livelihoods and leaving Ontario unprotected,” New Democratic Party Member of Provincial Parliament for Thunder Bay–Superior North Lise Vaugheois said.
(Lise Vaugheois/Facebook)
The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) has been calling on Ottawa to establish a national forest fire coordination agency to ensure that personnel and resources can be efficiently deployed across regions experiencing severe fires.
The CAFC also stresses the importance of involving fire chiefs in the development of national policies but progress has stalled at the planning stage.
A recent survey by the Angus Reid Institute reveals that Canadians strongly support mandatory national service for young adults, with 73 percent in favor of including environmental support as a key area of service.
Moore also expressed frustration that residents in cottage country, like those in her area, didn’t receive any alerts or notifications from authorities during the recent crisis. With limited internet access in these rural areas, many residents remain unaware of growing threats until it's too late.
She suggested using notification systems like Ontario Hydro’s, which sends text updates for power outages, or Peel Region’s weekly waste reminders. “These systems should be extended to alert residents about floods and wildfires,” she said, noting the need for a registry where cottage associations, which already manage local issues like road maintenance, could serve as points of contact for municipalities.
Further complicating the situation is the lack of clarity regarding government responsibility. Cottage country is often caught between federal, provincial, and municipal agencies, leading to fragmented communication.
"There's a clumsy baton exchange between governments at different levels. When we need information, it’s often only available on a website, and by then, it’s too late," she added.
As wildfires become an increasingly common part of Canadian summers, experts agree that the science is clear, but a more coordinated government response is crucial.
Morris says what’s happening in the Kawartha Lakes area should be “wake-up call” for Canadians as well as the governments.
A Canadian Climate Institute report notes a shift from reactive to proactive strategies is needed including restricting development in high-risk areas, promoting fire-resistant building practices, improving forest management, enhancing firefighting capacity, and, most importantly, reducing carbon emissions to mitigate the escalating impacts of climate change, including more frequent and intense wildfires.
“It's a wake-up call that climate change is real and could become a more regular occurrence here,” Moore said. “It just takes one event for everyone to realize, 'Wow, it can happen to us too.' It's not just something that happens in Manitoba or Northern Ontario; this is a very real issue.”
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