Bad weather is fueling fireworks in Canada and the US, experts say

The United States is burning faster than usual this year, season huge layers of smoke from Canadian wildfires destroying air quality on both sides of the border. Experts believe that the severity of the current fire season, which affects millions of hectares of land between the two countries, has been fueled by climate change.

More than 100 wildfires were burning in Canada on Thursday and strong winds were carrying their smoke – as well as some from a few larger fires. in Minnesota – across the Upper Midwest and northeastern US, exposing millions hazardous waste.

About 3,500 Canadian fires have consumed 2.3 million hectares of land this year, a staggering figure that is nearly equal to the country’s 10-year average for acres burned by mid-July. It’s actually lower than Canada’s 5-year average, which is twice as high after the worst recent fire seasons.

Fire seasons, in Canada, the US and elsewhere around the world, start earlier and last longer. And “difficult to contain,” smoldering winters “like zombie fires,” according to the Canadian Climate Institute, which noted how climate change is exacerbating wildfire threats and, in some cases, can multiply “the likelihood of extreme weather” several times.

In the US, nearly 40,000 fires have burned more than 3.6 million hectares so far in 2026, including half a million hectares in the past two weeks alone, according to the US National Interagency Fire Center. That’s nearly 10,000 more fires, and nearly a million more acres burned, than the 10-year average for mid-July. In the new advisory, the agency said “the fire is already showing typical conditions that may not be seen until the end of the season.”

The flames burned hundreds of thousands of hectares since January in the American West, Colorado and Utah have hit hard. At the end of June, Three firefighters died and two were injured in the Knowles Fire along the interstate border.

Of the 48 major wildfires currently active across the country, 10 are still active in Colorado or Utah. Most of the others are scattered throughout Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state.

“From a landscape standpoint, from an oil standpoint, and the weather and climate, everything has changed,” Jon Meyer, Utah’s assistant meteorologist, told CBS News.

Long drought, record heat and historically low snow in western states have created a “perfect storm,” as Meyer put it, in one of the region’s worst wildfire seasons in a decade.

Nick Nausler, of the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, said the intensity was not entirely surprising “given the conditions” that preceded it.

Integration a snow drought which raised alarms this spring as snow cover recedes over the Rockies and Cascades, western states have also faced repeated heat waves that began in March and continue until now.

Dan McEvoy, a researcher at the Nevada-based Western Regional Climate Center, said the 2026 snowpack in Colorado and Utah was “the worst that has been seen in other conditions” going back 50 to 75 years.

Snowpack across Canada’s northern band has also declined — the lowest in decades, according to the Canadian government.

An important part of regional water systems in the US and Canada, snowpack runoff brings moisture to the ground below as it melts. Without enough, the earth and plants become very susceptible to heat. McEvoy said this year, higher temperatures led to early snowmelt that gave the area an extra month to dry out before fire season started.

Climate change

Canadian officials clearly blame human-caused climate change for the fluctuating temperatures, snowpack and drought that support its wildfire seasons. US experts told CBS News that while climate change doesn’t tell the whole story of any single fire season — factors like forest management also play a role — the fingerprints on this one have been hard to miss.

Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University, cited research showing that about half of the long-term increase in area burned in the western US is due to climate change, meaning that without it, the amount burned would be 50% of what it was.

Higher temperatures are influencing wildfire patterns “both through snowpack and wind demand,” Diffenbaugh said, “and all of these trends are increasing wildfire risk in the West.” At this point, even the most ambitious goals to reduce carbon emissions probably won’t be enough to prevent those trends from continuing, he added.

Many states in the western US recently experienced the warmest winter on record, helping to drive this year’s snow drought, McEvoy said. And Meyer described the broader effects of climate change, such as intense heat and its duration, as “loading the dice” with intense fires in any given year.

Tim Brown, another climate researcher and colleague of McEvoy, also noted how the West is experiencing “hotter droughts” than ever before due to hotter temperatures, another factor fueling wildfires. Brown said the fire season can’t be chalked up to climate change alone, telling CBS News that “the weather starts the fire, and the weather causes the fire.”

What forecasters are looking at next

The latest seasonal outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center keeps much of the West at higher than normal risk of wildfires this fall. Although the confidence of the forecast after August is low due to the intensity El Ninoother signs point to heavy rain providing relief in several states.

McEvoy said the pattern is likely to shift north as the summer progresses, with above-average wildfires expected in August and September in Northern California, Oregon, Washington and the Northern Rockies.

Diffenbaugh warned that the West is still at the beginning of its fire risk calendar. The Diablo and Santa Ana winds that drive many of the region’s most dangerous fall fires have yet to arrive.

“It will still be months,” he said.