Planning for Wildfire Season Is Now Essential Across Canada
The first day of summer was still nearly a month away when Christine Williams got the text.
“I was at work, I teach Grade 1, and I got a text from my daughter,” Williams explained. “She said, ‘Come and pick me up from work, we are being evacuated.’ That’s how I found out.”
It was May 28, 2025, one day after the fire in the town of Flin Flon had been detected along the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. Williams and more than 5,000 of her neighbours were evacuated. The fire destroyed homes, cabins and the nearby town of Denare Beach. But it also burned through the wâhkôhtowin trails.
“When we evacuated, you’re thinking about your home, you’re thinking about your job,” Williams explained. “Then the longer we were away, I was thinking about the forests, about the trails, and if we were going to have anything to come back to.”
Williams is one of the co-chairs of wâhkôhtowin Trails Group, a local volunteer organization formed in 2024 to steward the trails around Flin Flon. She described early work as volunteers “pounding signs into the ground and clearing brush.”
After the fire, much of the forest the group had worked or planned to build trails in had burned.
“It was pretty devastating,” she said.
Rebuilding has been a challenge for the volunteers, and Williams is worried about another hot, dry summer.
Environment Canada Forecasts Above-Average Temperatures
According to Environment Canada’s seasonal outlook, published at the end of March, most of Canada should expect warmer-than-average temperatures this summer.
“People are going to have to practice heat safety,” said Dr. Daniel Scott, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo, and a member of the Science Alliance of Protect Our Winters Canada. “Particularly if they’re camping with kids and seniors.”
He’s also worried about increased wildfire risk. It’s a concern that’s shared by Natural Resources Canada. In an article published by The Weather Network, a spokesperson for the agency said that wildfire conditions are already being seen in parts of southern BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan. They also raised concerns about parts of BC, northern Manitoba, New Brunswick and eastern Northwest Territories, where snowpacks are well below normal levels.
“The outdoor community is going to have to be extra vigilant when they’re out,” said Dr. Scott. “In terms of their practices, so they don’t accidentally start a fire…but they also have to start really paying attention to where they hike, where they camp, to fire ratings and fire risk alerts. And you’ve got an evacuation route.”
That kind of thinking has become standard practice for Outward Bound Canada.
“We spend a lot of time managing risk,” explained Pete Smolders, Outward Bound’s Head of Western Canada. With climate change, some of that work is now focused on extreme heat, wildfires and smoke.
“In 2022 and 2023, we really started spending a lot of time looking at that,” Smolders said. “We put air quality index monitors in our backpacking trip kits in the Rockies so instructors were travelling with the ability to monitor local wildfire smoke.”
And that’s not the only thing that Outward Bound has done to prepare. Smolders explained that it starts with trip planning and research, looking at both weather and conditions, as well as changes to the landscape.
“We were just looking at a place to do a trip [in the Rockies] in June that used to be a go-to for us,” he said. “But the water sources just aren’t there anymore.”
When it comes to what the public can learn from Outward Bound’s experience, Smolders is a big advocate for planning with weather, fires and climate in mind.
“Be prepared; that’s the most important part,” he said. “And have a Plan B. The place that you might want to go might be a bucket list hike, but you always have to ask if it is the right time for it.”
A “Super El Niño”
But it’s not just a hot summer that meteorologists are forecasting; they’re also starting to talk about something called a “super El Niño.”
“It’s in the 50 to 75 percent probability range that a strong El Niño could develop over the summer,” Dr. Scott explained. Scientists expect this weather pattern, the result of shifting trade winds and warmer waters in the Pacific Ocean, to emerge towards the end of the Canadian summer, potentially extending hot, dry conditions into the fall.
And while scientists are careful to point out that every El Niño event is different, the system being forecast for this summer has historically been linked to heat, droughts and extreme weather. There are also long-term impacts that worry Dr. Scott.
“It sets up that kind of pattern of warmer summer, warmer fall, potentially less snowpack and a warmer spring,” he said.
That can load the deck for massive wildfires. In fact, the last “super” El Niño was in 2015. That time, it set off dangerous wildfire conditions across Canada, including in Fort McMurray, where a 2016 wildfire became one of the most devastating in Canadian history.
That worries Christine Williams, especially given the amount of work the wâhkôhtowin Trails Group still needs to do to rebuild and expand their local trails. While there is snow on the ground in Flin Flon, she’s worried it won’t be enough.
“We’re not getting precipitation, the ground is dry in areas that should be swamps,” she says. “We are all walking on eggshells right now.”
