The 2023 wildfire season in Canada was unprecedented in its scale andintensity, spanning from mid-April to late October and across much of theforested regions of Canada. Here, we summarize the main causes and impactsof this exceptional season.
Climate change contributes to the increased frequency and intensity of wildfires globally, with significant impacts on society and the environment. However, our understanding of the global distribution of extreme fires remains skewed, primarily influenced by media coverage and regionalised research efforts.
The scale of wildfire impacts to the built environment is growing and will likely continue under rising average global temperatures. We investigate whether and at what destruction threshold wildfires have influenced human mobility patterns by examining the migration effects of the most destructive wildfires in the contiguous U.S. between 1999 and 2020.