Fighting Canada’s Unending Fires

The wildfires sweeping Canada have become the largest in its modern history. Across the country, 30 million acres of forest have burned — three times as much land as in the worst American fire in the past 50 years.

The scale has forced an international response and a re-evaluation of how the world handles wildfires.

Firefighters on the front lines discuss the challenges they face, and David Wallace-Wells, a climate columnist for The Times, explores how climate change has shifted thinking about wildfires.

Guest: David Wallace-Wells, a climate columnist for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• With most of Canada’s fire season still ahead, the • country is on track to produce more carbon emissions from the burning of forests • than all of its other human and industrial activities combined, David Wallace-Wells writes in Times Opinion. • Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season shows the need to shift from suppressing fires to preventing them • as they become more difficult to combat.

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