After historic 2023: Canadian wildfire season starts early

After the worst wildfire season on record in 2023, this year Canada is seeing an early start to the 2024 season.

Last week, Alberta announced that the new wildfire season had already started. A week before the traditional starting date on March 1.

As of Wednesday, February 21, 149 active wildfires were burning parts of the country across Alberta, British Columbia, and New Brunswick.

Some of these outbreaks are remnants of the previous season. Severe drought in western Canada, combined with a mild winter and little snowfall, means so-called "zombie fires" persisted through winter.

Zombie fires are ignited during the warmer summer months and continue to smoulder underground throughout the colder winter months.

A historic 2023 wildfire season which saw around 6,623 fires across the country is now directly resulting in the early start this year too.

By the time last year's season ended, more than 44 million acres of land had been scorched. This is seven times the ten-year average in just a season.

Throughout the traditional wildfire season, more than 230,000 people were forced to evacuate to safety.

Officials say that this year could see an even worse situation, due to the number of zombie fires.