Early Heat Wave Driving Prairie Wildfires Was 5x More Likely Due to Climate Change

This week’s dangerous wildfires that forced tens of thousands to evacuate and prompted provincial emergency declarations in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were driven by an early-season heat wave made at least five times more likely by climate change, concludes a new analysis released May 30.

Temperatures have exceeded seasonal averages by 12.2° to 13.5°C in Manitoba and by 6.6 to 11.4°C in Saskatchewan, Climate Central reports, and both provinces are facing drought conditions ranging from Abnormally Dry to Moderate Drought.

In Saskatchewan, the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, and Montreal Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan declared a joint state of emergency due to what CBC called a “rapidly escalating, early wildfire season”, and Premier Scott Moe issued a province-wide emergency declaration Thursday after thousands were forced to evacuate. Manitoba issued its declaration Wednesday “due to rapidly spreading wildfires and extreme fire conditions in northern and eastern Manitoba,” CBC wrote, and the entire city of Flin Flon, population 17,000, was ordered to leave.

“This is the largest evacuation Manitoba will have seen in most people’s living memory,” Premier Wab Kinew told media Wednesday.

With a rating of 5 on the organization’s Climate Shift Index (CSI), high temperatures from May 26 through 29 were made five times more likely by human-caused climate change, Climate Central says. The index uses peer-reviewed methodology and real-time data to estimate how climate change increases the likelihood of a particular daily temperature.

“When temperatures reach a CSI level 5 across such a large area, it’s not just unusual—it means this kind of heat would be incredibly unlikely without climate change,” Climate Central Vice President of Science Dr. Kristina Dahl said in a release. “These conditions, which set the stage for dangerous wildfires, will only become more frequent and more severe if we continue burning fossil fuels.”

“Climate change-driven heat dries out vegetation and sets the stage for wildfires,” explained wildfire specialist Kaitlyn Trudeau, the organization’s senior research associate for climate science. “Combine that with persistent drought and a locked-in high-pressure system, and you have a perfect storm.”

Last week, the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis & Discovery (GLAD) Lab and the World Resources Institute (WRI)’s Global Forest Watch platform reported that forest destruction reached all-time record levels in 2024 due to a surge in wildfires. GLAD Co-Director Prof. Matt Hansen called the new data “frightening”, the Guardian reports. Global Forest Watch Co-Director Elizabeth Goldman said the results were “unlike anything we’ve seen in over 20 years of data.”

The tropics lost a “record-shattering” 6.7 million hectares of primary rainforest last year, an area nearly the size of Panama, an increase of 80% from 2023. “These are some of the most important forest ecosystems, critical for livelihoods, carbon storage, water provision, biodiversity, and more,” WRI writes. “Their loss in 2024 alone caused 3.1 gigatonnes (Gt) of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to slightly more than the annual CO2 emissions from India’s fossil fuel use.”

While fires are a natural part of forest ecosystems, “in tropical forests they are almost entirely human-caused, often started to clear land for agriculture and spreading out of control in nearby forests,” the institute adds. “Although forests can recover following fires, the combined effects of climate change and conversion of forests to other land uses like agriculture can make this recovery more difficult and increase the risk of future fires.”

Cover photo:  geralt/pixabay