Question Period Note: Canada Wildfires

To inform on the current wildfire situation in Canada, the 2023 wildfire season, and wildfire resources.

 • Floods and wildfires are the two costliest natural disasters that occur in Canada.
• This has been a historic wildfire season far surpassing any other wildfire season on record in Canada. These wildfires resulted in over 200,000 people evacuating their homes, including the evacuation of Yellowknife. Over 17 million hectares have burned this year which is unprecedented as the ten-year average is under three million hectares.
• This will no doubt be the most expensive wildfire season in Canada’s history. We will be tallying these costs for months to come as the damage continues to be assessed from coast to coast to coast.
• Over 16,000 firefighters helped fight this year’s wildfires and Canada received assistance from over 5,000 international firefighters. Even today, there are still over 900 wildfires burning throughout the country. These fires will continue to burn until the snow falls and may well continue to burn underground throughout the winter.
• The Government of Canada is committed to supporting the recovery of impacted communities. We provide financial assistance to PT governments through the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA), in the event of a large-scale natural disaster where response and recovery costs exceed what individual PTs could reasonably be expected to bear on their own. Administered by Public Safety, the DFAA provides the Government of Canada with a fair and equitable means of assisting provincial and territorial governments and has contributed over $8 billion in post-disaster assistance.
Responsive lines (if prompted)
• Emergencies are managed first at the local level. If municipal and local governments need assistance at the local level, they request it from the province or territory. If the emergency overwhelms PT capacity, the province or territory may seek assistance from the federal government through a Request for Federal Assistance (RFA).
• This fire season saw 12 RFAs put into place over the period of May to September, and necessitated extensions to seven of these. The Government Operations Centre (GOC), on behalf of the Government of Canada, is the lead for federal response coordination for emergency events and is committed to the prevention of, response to and recovery from wildfire events.
• We maintain continuous communication with our federal and provincial partners, including Indigenous communities, as well as with NGOs, as was the case in the coordination of a donation-matching program with the United Way.

The Government Operations Centre (GOC) is mandated, on behalf of the Government of Canada, to lead and support response coordination of events affecting national interest. It is an interdepartmental response-focused asset of the Government of Canada, working in support of deputy heads, departments and agencies at the national (strategic) whole-of-government level.

Each year, in consultation with partners, the GOC completes a comprehensive risk assessment and planning process in advance of flooding and the wildland urban interface seasons. The final outcomes includes contingency plans to outline a coordinated structure for an integrated federal response to flooding or wildfire events, in support of the provinces and territories (PT), for regions of concern.

In the past few years, the Minister of Public Safety, on behalf of the federal government, has accepted increasing numbers of Requests for Assistance (RFAs) for relief efforts from events including the recent impacts from Hurricane Fiona, Atmospheric River events, and BC wildfires.

In addition to the multitude of existing federal investments in wildland fire prevention and response, many new investments are launching including the Firefighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate program, which is providing $256 million over five years (starting in 2022-2023) to support PTs to strengthen fire management capacities and capabilities across the country by facilitating the purchase of wildland firefighting equipment to increase capacity to respond and prepare for wildland fires. Though this agreement, on 07 Sep, it was announced that more than $65 million in federal funding has been committed for six agreements to 6 PTs (AB, BC, NS, SK, NT, YK).

In addition, the Training Fund portion of the program committed $28 million over 5 years, which has garnered important results such as 160 trained participants at the Type II level and 61 trained firefighters deployed in Indigenous communities in AB, BC, ON, YK, and NT.

Season & Current Situation

The 2023 wildfire season has been the worst in Canadian history in terms of area burned. Nationally, there have been 6,400 fires to date, with an estimated 17.5M hectares burned this year, which is more than double the previous record of 7.3M hectares burned, seen in 1989 or the 7.2M hectares burned in 1995, and more than six times the 10-year national average.

In response to this unprecedented fire season, the Government of Canada has provided assistance to six PTs through 12 RFAs, plus seven RFA extensions. Humanitarian support by the federal government and NGOs has been provided to 73 First Nations communities.

While actual numbers of firefighters are not readily available due to variances out of our control, i.e. dual reporting in a home PT as well as one to which a responder is deployed or possible unreported information, the following aggregated numbers have been collected from various reporting resources received at the GOC in order to fully highlight the scope of the response effort over the past 4.5 months:

•Total approximate amount of firefighters involved in the 2023 wildfire response: 16,425

•Total firefighters working from within PTs: 8,281
•Firefighters deployed from PTs to other PTs: 568
•CAF personnel deployed to PTs as firefighters: 1,860
•International firefighters provided to PTs via CIFFC: 5,504
•Firefighters provided via USA-Province Compact Agreements: 212

Currently, 910 wildfires are actively burning and 652 are considered out-of-control.

There is a potential for increased wildland fire activity across central Canada moving forward. Some existing large fires in western Canada may continue to burn through September or possibly into late fall/winter.

Requests for Assistance

The GOC coordinates formal RFAs from the federal government and PTs and liaises with key organizations such as the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and non-governmental organizations.

When the emergency involves a First Nation (FN) community, FN leadership, depending on relevant emergency management agreements, we will work in collaboration with their PTs and/or ISC or regional officials, to assess the emergency and propose a response. If a resolution is not possible at the regional level, a request for assistance may be sought.

Since May 2023, a total of 12 wildfire-related RFAs have been approved (2 NT, 2 AB, 3 BC, 1 ON, 3 QC, 1 NS), and seven have received extensions (1 NT, 2 BC, 2 AB, 2 QC).

• All RFAs from PTs were for a select scope of federal support, chiefly key activities of support included logistics and planning, ICS-trained personnel support, firefighter personnel, and evacuation support.
• The GOC and the Government of Canada stand ready to assist should further RFAs be received.

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