Every forest fire on Vancouver Island this year — all 46 of them — has been started by humans, though that won’t stop political opportunists from moralizing about climate change.
According to Jade Richardson, information officer at Coastal Fire Centre, typically by this time of the year Vancouver Island would only have had two forest fires.
“Vancouver Island specifically has been seeing increased fire activity in 2023,” Richardson told Chek News.
“On the Island, we haven’t had any natural caused fires, all 46 have been human-caused.”
Generally, nearly half of Canada’s forest fires are started naturally by lightning, and humans cause the other half.
What explains the uptick in forest fires?
A recent poll from Clean Energy Canada indicated that 7 out of 10 Canadians believe the recent wildfires have something to do with climate change.
However, the annual number of wildfires in Canada over the past 40 years appears to be relatively stable, if not slightly decreasing. In spite of this, the usual suspects continue to politicize the fires.
Earlier this month, Trudeau’s former advisor and long-time pal Gerald Butts blamed climate change for the forest fires that were started by arsonists across Canada.
Butts, along with several Liberal MPs, regularly connects the forest fires in Canada to man-made climate change.
In Alberta, the overactive wildfire season has led Premier Danielle Smith to hire out-of-province investigators to look into potential cases of arson.
The Alberta RCMP also stated they’re investigating a series of fires near Strathcona as suspected cases of arson.
