Summer season conducive to forest fires in several regions of the country
Posted May 28, 2026 2:49 pm.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is forecasting weather conditions favourable for forest fires in the coming months for several regions of the country, including southern Quebec.
The start of this year’s forest fire season has been slower than in 2025, but the risk of fire for the summer season remains high.
“The conditions observed in the spring are not always indicative of what the rest of the season holds in store, and fire seasons in Canada are extremely variable and conditions can change very quickly,” explained Yan Boulanger, a spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada, during a technical briefing for the media Thursday morning.
For June and July, weather conditions conducive to wildfires are expected to be above seasonal norms for almost all provinces in the country, according to federal officials.
“We can see indications of above-normal temperatures for almost all Canadian regions, with higher probabilities in British Columbia, the southern Prairies, eastern Quebec to Labrador,” including the Atlantic provinces, explained Sébastien Chouinard, director of the Meteorological Service at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
“Our forecasts indicate that there will be less precipitation than the seasonal norm in southern Ontario and southern Quebec,” added Sébastien Chouinard.
Around sixty active fires
Across the country, 65 fires are active as of May 28.
Yan Boulanger specified that the fire season began “relatively calmly” this year, with a “total area burned representing less than 5 per cent of the ten-year average for this time of year”, with 180 square kilometers recorded to date, compared to an average of 5190 km2 over the last ten years.
“The number of fires observed since the beginning of the season is also slightly lower,” said the spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada.
The 2025 wildfire season was the second worst ever recorded in Canada, with nearly 90,000 square kilometres ravaged by September – an area larger than New Brunswick.
There were 6,000 forest fires in the country last year, forcing 76,000 people to leave their homes.
Different models, different forecasts
Unlike MétéoMédia, which forecasts below-normal seasonal temperatures and above-normal rainfall for the eastern part of the country due in particular to El Niño, ECCC’s weather models are leaning towards a hot, dry summer.
“We are not expecting a strong El Niño influence in Canada during the summer,” said Nathan Gillett, a climate researcher at Environment and Climate Change Canada, on Thursday morning.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
