‘The new reality’? Canadian wildfires become the global face of unfolding ecological disaster

If Canada were a colour, it would be orange.

The orange flames of the burning trees, from one end of this country to the other, pushing air quality levels in Toronto, across Ontario and elsewhere to their most hazardous levels.

The orange haze that this country’s wildfires have cast upon New York’s Empire State Building and other world-famous landmarks.

The haunting images of Canada’s flaming tinder leaving its mark on America have effectively captured the vast power of nature’s wrath, and have become the global face of an unfolding ecological and humanitarian disaster in this country.

It is a disaster that has burned nearly four million hectares of land so far this year, and which could see Canada on track to record its most damaging wildfire season since 1995 — outstripping the British Columbia fires of 2021 and the Northwest Territories blazes of 2014.

And it’s unclear when the smoke will dissipate, with Toronto’s air quality health index expected to hover at levels 8 and 9, considered “high risk,” through Thursday, and smoke from hundreds of wildfires continuing to cause air quality warnings throughout Canada’s most populated corridor.

Outdoor activities have been cancelled or moved indoors, and Environment Canada warned that those with respiratory issues like asthma and heart disease, and those working outside, faced a higher risk of adverse health effects.

The latest national tally had 414 wildfires burning, with more than half — 239 — considered to be “out of control.”

A troubling number of them are in dangerous proximity to towns, villages and communities. And fire crews from the United States, France, South Africa and a handful of other countries have dispatched or are preparing to send reinforcements our way to save lives, land and property.

The White House has been in regular touch with the federal government in Ottawa for several days now, having already deployed more than 600 firefighters and personnel, as well as water bombers, said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

The great urgency of the troubling situation has sparked obvious fears — ones that federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair sought to calm on Tuesday.

“I want to assure Canadians that all orders of government are working closely together, including our Indigenous partners, to ensure a co-ordinated and effective response,” he said in Ottawa. “It’s all hands on deck, and it’s around the clock.”

After an intense start to the spring and summer wildfire season, when the threat and response swung from western B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to eastern Nova Scotia, all the focus is now on the alarming conditions in Quebec and Ontario, which together account for nearly 200 of the nation’s active forest fires.

“We are in for, probably, the most severe fire season our province has ever experienced and people are quite rightly worried for their immediate future and whether this is the new reality,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles told the legislature.

Despite the elevated risk, Premier Doug Ford limited himself to requesting that Ontarians refrain from lighting campfires, while stopping short of instituting a provincewide fire ban.

Ontario Natural Resources and Forestry Minister Graydon Smith noted that fire restrictions are already in place in most parts of the province, which he said was “enormous … with different conditions in some different areas.”

“We’re taking action where we feel is appropriate,” he said.

On Twitter, which was awash Wednesday in photos and videos of the otherworldly scene, the U.S. National Weather Service posted a time-lapse video that showed the New York skyline gradually disappearing behind a thick orange veil.

Air passengers reported smelling smoke inside the plane as their flights descended into the haze. New York Mayor Eric Adams urged citizens to remain indoors. And residents of the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest, where wildfire smoke is a regular part of life, urged their eastern counterparts to get a grip.

Actress Jodie Comer abandoned her one-woman play on Broadway in the middle of a matinee, citing breathing problems as a result of the pollution. And even “Sesame Street” got in on the act, urging parents to keep their kids inside.

In Quebec, fires threatened more than half a dozen towns and Indigenous communities, resulting in the evacuation of more than 11,000 people.

“I’ve been here at the arena since 8 o’clock Tuesday night and I only left for 15 minutes to take a shower at home,” Serge Bergeron, the mayor of Roberval, Que., said by telephone Wednesday from the local hockey rink that’s been turned into a 450-bed refuge for those fleeing fires that have threatened Chibougamau, to the northwest.

Normally, the 255-kilometre drive takes three hours. The traffic from the forced evacuation turned that into a seven- or eight-hour journey on Wednesday.

“We have had people suffering from anxiety, who are crying, who are scared — scared that their house would burn,” Bergeron said.

Not all are so quick to flee the flames.

Quebec Premier François Legault noted in a Wednesday morning news conference that 4,000 residents of Mistissini, a Cree community in northern Quebec, were among those he expected to begin evacuating to a safer location.

The remote community, about 800 kilometres north of Montreal, lost power after its main hydro lines were damaged and is now reliant on an older, secondary power line that was brought back into service.

But Mistissini Chief Michael Petawabano angrily took to the local radio station later in the day to say: “Legault does not run our community.”

He said that a southbound road leading out of the community was still open and safe, and that vulnerable residents in need of medical care had already been sent away. The local school had been closed for the remainder of the week and officials urged people to reduce their electricity use and not to hoard supplies and gasoline.

Yet, despite the “out of control” fire raging to the west, Petawabano maintained that there was “no danger.”

“We are safe,” he said. “We are not evacuating at the moment.”

Part of the decision to stay put, he said, was based on close contact with a provincial agency which co-ordinates forest firefighting services in Quebec and is surveying the fire’s advance from the air.

Allan Woods is a Montreal-based staff reporter for the Star. He covers global and national affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @WoodsAllan