2026 Wildfire Season

[foresterab]

So far the action this season appears to be in Saskatchewan (a couple of large fires), Ontario (Timmons), and Parks Canada (Wood Buffalo National Park).

Alberta tends to be dominated by early spring/summer fires that get really big...frankly while we've been having fires it's a much reduced past compared to the last 5 years...lighting fires haven't really started yet though. BC traditionally has been more mid-late summer fires which is why often BC crews came to Alberta early season...and then the pattern reversed for the later half of summer. Recent years at least NE BC has been following more of the Alberta early season major fire rhythm but there has also been large drought issues in that corner of Canada (NE BC, NW AB, SW NWT in past years).

The national forecasts seems to be holding somewhat true this early season....slightly cooler and wetter spring but then they are calling for a hotter second half of summer and unfortunately a hotter/drier fall which would extend seasons.

 

[RangerRay]

Wait, I'm from farther east, so shouldn't you call them "Middle Easterners"?

We always used to say “Everything east of the Rockies is Newfoundland”.

 

[daftandbarmy]

We always used to say “Everything east of the Rockies is Newfoundland”.

... or 'it's all downhill from the Rockies East'

 

[The Bread Guy]

In addition to leasing some waterbombers & choppers for surge needs ...

Ottawa pledges $316M to boost leased aerial firefighting fleet - Skies Mag

Spending over the next five years aims to enable the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre to lease and deploy multiple aircraft.

skiesmag.com

Government of Canada funds 10 new wildfire-firefighting aircraft and two firefighting support assets to boost nationwide response capacity - Canada.ca

Provincial and territorial wildfire agencies can now request access to deploy four aerial firefighting air tankers, one birddog plane, five heavy lift helicopters, and two support assets via CIFFC. These assets will increase national aerial surge capacity by improving provincial and territorial...

www.canada.ca

Pan-Canadian Aerial Asset Program - Canada.ca

The Government of Canada is investing $316.7 million over five years to increase Canada’s aerial wildfire firefighting capacity.

www.canada.ca

... seems GoC's looking to set up evacuation centres, too (working with provinces/municipalities, as well as some FNs looking at hosting other FN members having to evacuate from their own communities & looking for something other than an "in town" urban evacuation experience).

Feds planning evacuation centres in advance of wildfire season

The federal government says it's helping to set up evacuation centres across the country for people fleeing wildfires.

cheknews.ca

 

[YZT580]

In addition to leasing some waterbombers & choppers for surge needs ...

Ottawa pledges $316M to boost leased aerial firefighting fleet - Skies Mag

Spending over the next five years aims to enable the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre to lease and deploy multiple aircraft.

skiesmag.com

Government of Canada funds 10 new wildfire-firefighting aircraft and two firefighting support assets to boost nationwide response capacity - Canada.ca

Provincial and territorial wildfire agencies can now request access to deploy four aerial firefighting air tankers, one birddog plane, five heavy lift helicopters, and two support assets via CIFFC. These assets will increase national aerial surge capacity by improving provincial and territorial...

www.canada.ca

Pan-Canadian Aerial Asset Program - Canada.ca

The Government of Canada is investing $316.7 million over five years to increase Canada’s aerial wildfire firefighting capacity.

www.canada.ca

... seems GoC's looking to set up evacuation centres, too (working with provinces/municipalities, as well as some FNs looking at hosting other FN members having to evacuate from their own communities & looking for something other than an "in town" urban evacuation experience).

Feds planning evacuation centres in advance of wildfire season

The federal government says it's helping to set up evacuation centres across the country for people fleeing wildfires.

cheknews.ca

It seems to me that all they are doing is taking out a lease on aircraft that were already available. The only apparent difference between last year and this is the name of the customer on the lease. This part of the announcement appears as nothing but public relations although the provinces will probably appreciate not having to shell out. I would have been more impressed if they had announced the purchase of a fleet of new aircraft. The best thing about this announcement is the establishment of evacuation centres.

 

[The Bread Guy]

It seems to me that all they are doing is taking out a lease on aircraft that were already available. The only apparent difference between last year and this is the name of the customer on the lease. This part of the announcement appears as nothing but public relations although the provinces will probably appreciate not having to shell out. I would have been more impressed if they had announced the purchase of a fleet of new aircraft.

Agreed that this sounds like a "what can we do yesterday?" answer. I suspect the bureaucrats pointed out the complexity of 1) maintaining such a fleet, 2) the ... fickleness of figuring out how to assign the planes from a common pool, and 3) what do you do with water bombers when they're not putting out fires (much of the winter)? Lend them to countries in the southern hemisphere whose fire season is opposite ours? Is that even possible?

 

[foresterab]

Agreed that this sounds like a "what can we do yesterday?" answer. I suspect the bureaucrats pointed out the complexity of 1) maintaining such a fleet, 2) the ... fickleness of figuring out how to assign the planes from a common pool, and 3) what do you do with water bombers when they're not putting out fires (much of the winter)? Lend them to countries in the southern hemisphere whose fire season is opposite ours? Is that even possible?

Haven't heard much officially on this.

There has always been a few spare airframes around in the back used to replace contract machines when overhauls etc. were needed. I'm not sure if these were part of that pool or new capacity that was under development...will acknowledge the Dash 8 Q400 makes a pretty nice water bomber and quite a few airframes have been converted in recent years.

If it's a seasonal contract then yes the air frames could potentially be sent south to assist other areas or a second contract set up. SOPFEU for example contracts out part of their CL-415 fleet to CALFIRE annually which is why the tanker footage of them in LA a couple of years ago went viral. But they were working as CALFIRE machines despite the Quebec paintjob.

Securitie Civile (France) did just order a couple more CL-515 airframes so the order book continues to expand for that air frame.

But in terms of a National fleet....tougher call. Scoopers like the CL-515 would be great in parts of Ontario/Quebec/Manitoba/N. Sask. Less useful in BC. Might be a SAR role for it on the coasts and Great Lakes like some nations use the CL-215/CL-415.

But something like the Dash 8-Q400 MRE (Multi-role) makes more sense to me for a federal fleet as it can be used for both fire fighting and also for medevac/cargo/passager use...my thinking being northern support or community evacuations. Saskatchewan has two of these models in their new fleet for comparision. It's another Canadian airframe and just makes more sense to me than investing in very specialized equipment that are sometimes needed. Dash 8-400MRE Multi Role | Conair

There's also Single Engine Air Tankers but not used much outside of AB/BC and NB. Air Tractor is not a Canadian company though