Climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires in many regions of the world. This is due partly to specific weather conditions – known as fire weather – that facilitate the spread of wildfires. Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and Australian colleagues have found that fire weather seasons are increasingly overlapping between eastern Australia and western North America. The research team examined the causes of this shift and its implications for cross-border cooperation between fire services in Canada, the US, and Australia. The research was published in Earth’s Future.

Local authorities must do more to prepare communities in British Columbia for the dangers of extreme heat, according to a new research paper from Simon Fraser University. 

Four years after the infamous 2021 heat dome, which killed more than 600 people in B.C. alone, the ground-breaking study found significant differences in how municipalities within the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley regional districts are preparing for heat events.