Trees burned by wildfires in northern Manitoba on June 12. Manitoba has borne the brunt of this year’s damage from wildfires and is under its second 30-day provincewide state of emergency.Mike Deal/The Canadian Press
Rapidly growing wildfires in several provinces forced thousands of people from their homes and prompted air-quality warnings in cities thousands of kilometres away, while hot and dry conditions had other areas on high alert, including Nova Scotia, where the government banned most summertime activities in wooded areas.
The deteriorating conditions have added up to a wildfire season that is on track to be one of Canada’s worst on record in terms of area burned, second only to 2023.
As of Tuesday, at least 15,000 people were under evacuation orders in Manitoba, largely in the province’s north, while fires on Newfoundland and Labrador’s Avalon Peninsula had forced around 600 people from their homes.
Across the country, more than 760 wildfires are burning, at least 205 of them deemed out of control. About 6.8 million hectares of land have burned so far this year.
Hazardous smoke and fumes from the fires have triggered alerts on consecutive days in regions well outside of active zones, including some parts of the United States. Conditions in larger cities slightly improved by Tuesday, though Environment and Climate Change Canada maintained special advisories for stretches of Ontario and Quebec.
“It’s no secret this has been an unbelievably historic dry season,” Newfoundland and Labrador Premier John Hogan told reporters in St. John’s Tuesday.
Mr. Hogan said the province has had 192 significant wildfires in 2025. He added that the province is requesting help from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre and New Brunswick.
Over the past long weekend, two fires in Newfoundland and Labrador couldn’t be contained, as several smaller communities were evacuated near the towns of Small Point–Adam’s Cove–Blackhead–Broad Cove and Kingston.
Mr. Hogan said the province was expanding those evacuations to other nearby areas – including the towns of Salmon Cove, Conception Bay South, Holyrood and Western Bay. He added that one of the fires had tripled in size within a single night, reaching at least 735 hectares. Power in that entire area has been shut down.
“The very unfortunate situation is that we can confirm we have lost some structures,” Mr. Hogan said, adding officials have not been able to assess the full extent of the damage. “It is very serious.”
In Nova Scotia, Premier Tim Houston announced severe restrictions on outdoor activity.
He said the province was banning hiking, camping, fishing, mining, forestry and all other outdoor pursuits in wooded areas until at least October. People can access beaches and parks, though trail systems are closed and private landowners are also not allowed to host guests in wooded properties.
“As tinder-dry conditions continue to persist from one end of the province to the other, the risk of wildfires increases. And the risk is very, very high right now,” he said at a news conference in Halifax. He announced a $25,000 fine for violating the restrictions.
“I’m asking everyone to do the right thing – don’t light that campfire, stay out of the woods and protect our people and communities.”
Wildfire smoke map: Moderate risk in Toronto as air quality warnings blanket Western Canada
Manitoba, which has borne the brunt of this year’s damage from wildfires, is under its second 30-day provincewide state of emergency this season. With around 15,000 people continuing to be out of their homes, largely from communities in the northern region, more than 1.55 million hectares of the province have been scorched.
This week, around 2,500 residents of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation have been added to the lengthy list of Manitoba’s evacuees. Many of them had arrived 600 kilometres away in Winnipeg by Tuesday, as the province contended with 165 active fires.
But the roughly 1,300 people still in Nisichawayasihk, often called Nelson House, are now being asked to stay put, said Marcel Moody, deputy chief of the First Nation.
“We’re seeing some favourable winds that are helping the situation here quite a bit,” Mr. Moody said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “That’s why, for now, we’re pausing the evacuations, so that we can figure out exactly what’s happening with the fires. We do know it could all get much worse very quickly in a heartbeat, so everyone is staying on alert to leave as soon as we ask them to.”
Lenora Spence, who arrived in Winnipeg from Nisichawayasihk with her son, said she was able to fly out with only a single suitcase this week. She misses her home and has found the emergency accommodations to be challenging.
“My son has special needs, and this is all so very difficult for us,” she said. “I’m grateful we have a cot to sleep on, even if it is in this cramped shelter. But we really just want to go back home.”
In neighbouring Saskatchewan, crews faced 81 wildfires Tuesday – including one fire near Beauval, around 400 kilometres north of Saskatoon, that has grown to more than 313,000 hectares in size, forcing evacuations in several communities. Multiple highways in that province remain closed.
Farther west, officials in Alberta have sought more personnel from Quebec as 63 wildfires burn, a quarter of which are classified as out of control. But the situation there is much better than it was this time last year, when wildfires destroyed at least one third of the area surrounding Jasper National Park.
Across the Rockies, temperatures have lowered and rain is expected this week – respite that firefighters hope will also help contain a major fire on Vancouver Island, which led to roughly 1,000 people being evacuated late last week.
British Columbia was hit by lightning nearly 70,000 times over the long weekend, said Jean Strong, a spokesperson for the BC Wildfire Service. She said those strikes ignited some of the 122 new fires detected during the past four days.
So far this year, Ms. Strong estimates 729,651 hectares of B.C. have burned – a high level of damage, though most of the flames have been concentrated in the remote northeast part of the province.
But that could change later this week, as forecasts show warmer, dry weather is expected to return on the West Coast.
Nick Acciavatti, fire chief of the volunteer fire department in Dashwood, a small community close to Nanaimo, said he hopes the Wesley Ridge fire on Vancouver Island is under control by then. Nearly 400 properties and a provincial park have been evacuated because of that fire.