Canada’s 2025 wildfire season now second-worst on record, fuelled by Prairies blazes

By Canadian Press on August 8, 2025.

TORONTO — Canada’s 2025 wildfire season is now the second-worst on record.

The latest figures posted by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre suggest fires have torn through 72,000 square kilometres, an area roughly the size of New Brunswick.

That surpasses the next-worst season in 1989 and is about half the area burned during the record-setting 2023 season, according to a federal database of wildfire seasons dating back to 1972.

This season has strained firefighting resources, displaced thousands of people and stifled communities across Canada in wildfire smoke, with Saskatchewan and Manitoba seeing the most area burned.

Canada has been at its highest wildfire preparedness level since late May, with around 1,400 international firefighters called in to help so far this year.

Scientists have warned climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is making fire seasons longer and more intense.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 8, 2025.

Jordan Omstead, The Canadian Press