Five ways governments can respond to supercharged wildfires

This summer has shown that wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe across Canada, driven largely by climate change. Whether it’s been smoke blanketing your neighbourhood or the consistent stream of media stories about new wildfires, evacuations, and recreational closures, 2025 officially became Canada’s second worst wildfire season on record earlier this month. That has put communities, infrastructure, and natural ecosystems at increasing risk.

This summer has shown that wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe across Canada, driven largely by climate change. Whether it’s been smoke blanketing your neighbourhood or the consistent stream of media stories about new wildfires, evacuations, and recreational closures, 2025 officially became Canada’s second worst wildfire season on record earlier this month. That has put communities, infrastructure, and natural ecosystems at increasing risk.

Recent analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute shows that financial losses from wildfires could more than double by 2030 if federal housing targets are achieved in line with current development patterns. British Columbia would see massive financial losses, with significant losses in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec as well.

Governments can take proactive action to reduce this threat, from smarter forest management and prescribed burns to Indigenous fire stewardship practices. Ensuring communities are fire-ready and limiting development in high-risk areas are also crucial measures to protect people and property.

The Canadian Climate Insititute’s latest op-ed, featured in Policy Options, outlines five key actions for governments, including updating building codes to enhance resilience, boosting firefighting capacity, especially in remote and Indigenous communities, and accelerating carbon emission reductions to tackle the root cause of climate-driven fires. By implementing these strategies, governments can better safeguard lives, infrastructure, and the environment.

Five actions governments can take now

Canada must shift from reacting to wildfires to preparing for them. That means updating how and where infrastructure is built, how forests are managed, and how emergency responses are supported. According to the Canadian Climate Institute, here are five key actions governments can take to reduce wildfire risk—noting that no single strategy can solve the problem by itself.

1. Stop encouraging building in harm’s way. Provinces and territories should establish policies to direct housing and infrastructure development, as well as public funding, away from the highest-hazard wildfire zones to areas of lower risk. The federal government should this by ensuring that housing and infrastructure funding is directed to low-risk locations. Governments also need to invest in wildfire hazard mapping, which is incomplete or absent in most parts of Canada, to inform better decision-making.
2. Make new development fire-resilient. Programs such as FireSmart offer practical guidance to help communities reduce fire risk—from using fire-resistant materials to maintaining defensible space around homes. However, these programs are voluntary. Provincial and territorial governments should incorporate these kinds of principles into building codes and land use policies to ensure that all new homes are built with fire risk in mind. This would not only protect individual homes but also reduce the risk of fires spreading in communities.
3. Manage forests and reduce wildfire fuel. Provincial, territorial and federal governments should ramp up fuel management to reduce flammable vegetation in overgrown forests near communities. Fuel management techniques that can lower wildfire intensity include fuel thinning, where trees and undergrowth are selectively removed, and prescribed fire, which is a planned fire that takes place under select weather conditions. Governments should also support the use of traditional Indigenous knowledge to manage fire, such as through cultural burning.
4. Strengthen firefighting capacity. Canada’s worsening wildfire seasons are stretching firefighting resources too thin. Remote and Indigenous communities are particularly exposed but often have less capacity to respond. Governments should increase funding for wildland firefighting and emergency response and improve co-ordination to manage multiple concurrent fires. Adequate compensation and support would also help retain skilled wildland firefighters.
5. Cut carbon pollution to avoid runaway risk. The faster Canada cuts its carbon emissions, the more damage we can avoid. Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels can prevent the most catastrophic impacts.

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Featured photo credit: Getty Images