Waiting, watching and worrying: Emotions run high as wildfire season begins in earnest

This story is part of the World on Fire series, CBC's wildfire and climate change podcast. In this episode, we check in on how front-line workers are feeling as this wildfire season begins in earnest and look at related struggles of ecological grief and the spread of misinformation.

LISTEN | Wildfires burned a record amount of Canada last year. This year looks no better:

Sonja Leverkus says she no longer looks forward to summer.

"Last year was probably hands down one of the worst years of my life."

But this year is shaping up to be more of the same for the wildland fire crew leader and ignition specialist.

Leverkus and her crew are based in Fort Nelson, B.C., which is currently at the centre of several big, fast-moving wildfires. This season, they had to switch gears from putting out zombie fires that burned through the winter to help battle the massive Parker Lake wildfire that was spotted on May 10.

A photo posted by B.C. Emergency Health Services shows wildfires burning near Fort Nelson, B.C., on May 10. (Andrei Axenov/B.C. Emergency Health Services)

That wildfire, which started when high winds blew a tree onto a power line and caused it to catch fire, forced an evacuation order for about 4,700 people, including the community as well as Fort Nelson First Nation in B.C.'s northeast.

"We are out there in the black, and also I live here," says Leverkus, an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta Wildfire Analytics Lab. "That changes things a lot."

"We know we're going to see more fire. It just seems to be what's happening and what we all feel when we listen to the land up here."

A view of the smoke-shrouded Edmonton skyline on May 11. Smoke drifted into the city from the wildfire near Fort Nelson, B.C., more than 800 kilometres away. (Adrienne Lamb/CBC)

Last year was big. What will this year hold?

Federal scientists and politicians weighed in with their predictions last week for another hot, dry summer — the "perfect conditions for intense wildfires," said Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.

Canada's 2023 wildfire season saw eight people die fighting fires, tens of thousands forced to flee their homes and communities, a thick blanket of smoke across the continent, and a record 15 million hectares scorched.

"That's seven times the annual average," says Mike Flannigan, the B.C. innovation research chair in predictive services, emergency management and fire science at Thompson Rivers University.

For comparison's sake, Flannigan says the area burned in 2023 was bigger than the total of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and several Prince Edward Islands combined. It destroyed about five per cent of the forested area of Canada.

"Last year was a crazy year, an exceptional year, a year off the charts," he says.

While Flannigan doesn't think we'll come close to that again, "it will depend on the day-to-day fire weather.

"Those hot, dry, windy days, we call them spread days," he says. "We're seeing more of them."

A few buds on this tree were spared from a forest fire in June 2023 that ravaged parts of Shelburne County in Nova Scotia. (Submitted by Communications Nova Scotia)

Fighting bad information

Other things that spread during major wildfires include misinformation and conspiracy theories, says communications expert Timothy Caulfield.

The Canada research chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta says large-scale disasters create anxiety, uncertainty and maybe even anger. "People want answers."

Wildfires are increasingly used as an "opportunity to push an anti-climate change or a denial narrative," he adds.

An Alberta firefighter looks out at smoky skies in spring 2023. (Alberta Wildfire/Twitter)

"Perhaps the wildfires were started as a false flag to push a climate change agenda or we've heard there's space lasers that are causing the fires or directed energy pulses," says Caulfield.

He worries this season might be even worse when you factor in the growing role of artificial intelligence in spreading misinformation.

"What if there was really convincing AI imagery or video that fits with conspiracy theory or misinformation? It's going to become even more difficult to debunk."

U of A master's student Stephanie Olsen, along with her niece, feeds chickadees at Edmonton's Rundle Park. (Submitted by Stephanie Olsen)

Fanning flames of grief

Master's student Stephanie Olsen wonders what this season will mean for Canadians like her who are experiencing eco-grief.

This kind of grief is not just about the impact of the smoke-filled skies and "the science getting more and more terrifying," says Olsen, who studies the mental challenges and emotional impacts of the climate crisis at the University of Alberta.

It's "grief for ecological loss, and destabilization, and all of its impacts on our personal, social, cultural and political lives," says Olsen.

It also includes grieving the loss of beloved places, summer traditions and activities that we can no longer access.

"Grief and love are two sides of the same coin. The things that people grieve are the same things that they love and value."

You can hear more on a special broadcast of World on Fire, May 20 at 5 p.m. on CBC Radio One and SiriusXM