Jennifer Wilson Pines

A few weeks ago, our lives were disrupted when the smoke of distant fires in Canada turned the skies hazy yellow and the air became dangerous to breathe.

Smoke and tiny particles of burning northern forests filled the air, canceling outdoor events, prompting a return of wearing masks outdoors, and keeping people huddled inside. We had options to escape the poor air quality, but wild birds and animals did not.

Just like us, they get sore throats, scratchy eyes, and shortness of breath.  The longer they’re exposed to it, and the higher the concentration of exposure, the worse it’s going to be.

Whether it had an impact on the wildlife in our area is still to be seen, but since the impact was of relatively short duration probably did not a long-lasting effect.

For us it was an unpleasant but short-lived experience. The story in Canada is very different.

This was the worst year for wildfires recorded in Canada in terms of area burned.  Almost 24 million acres have been incinerated in mega fires. That’s 37,000 square miles or as if the entire state of Maine or 2/3 of New York had been reduced to black, smoking ash. The fires also lead to soil erosion and increase the risk of flooding.

The northern forest would normally be able to handle and has evolved to need fire, with tree species like jack pine and lodgepole pine needing fire to unlock their cones’ seeds.

Smaller, patchy fires create openings allowing new plants to thrive in sunlight and the organic matter of the decomposing trees. Some bird species like the Black-backed Woodpecker feast on the larva of bark- and wood-boring beetles that arrive to lay eggs in charred trees.

The new openings in the forest give Dusky Flycatchers and Mountain Bluebirds a place for aerial insect hunting.

But species that rely on mature old-growth forest such as Pileated Woodpeckers, Townsend’s Warblers, and Golden-crowned Kinglets, must leave to find new suitable habitats.

Most adult birds can survive fires as they are able to fly away. But the millions of nestlings that were in the path of these fires very likely perished. Land animals fare much worse, and many species were probably trapped and died.

This year’s fires were fueled by a conjunction of circumstance, a perfect storm. A drought in western Canada led to a build up of dry or dying trees and plants. Many thunderstorms with lightning strikes and high temperatures led to mega fires that burned hotter and spread faster and farther than in previous years.

According to professor Karen Hodges of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia could lose up to half of its forest due to these repeated fires and drought. There are already 1,900 species at risk of extinction in that province, including plants, fish, and birds.

Hodges said her students are studying species impacted by wildfire, especially owls, lynx, and snowshoe hares.  A number of these species require bigger and older trees, and when the mega-fires destroy thousands of acres at a time, that habitat is lost for those species for decades.

Studies by scientists in both the US and Canada have tied the increase in wildfires to human-caused climate change.

Hotter, drier weather has increased the length of the fire season and made drought a more regular phenomenon. Another major factor has been the decades of fire suppression, leading to a buildup of dry, highly flammable material. Fires have even been spreading into the tundra, in places that haven’t burned for thousands of years.

When possible, controlled burns are being used to rid the forest of overgrowth and dead, dry material, but dry conditions and high winds can prevent using this technique.

While our taste of the burning of the northern forests was a shock, people and wildlife living in these fire zones must endure these conditions and worse for weeks and months.

For boreal breeding birds, it was a disaster with the loss of a generation and potentially permanent health impacts that could compromise their ability to make strenuous migration journeys and future breeding cycles.

There isn’t a quick fix or solution other than doing what we can to lower carbon emissions to reverse climate change and support the natural cycles of the boreal forests.