Canada Wildfire Map: Live Fires by Province

The quickest way to see wildfires across Canada is a satellite fire map that covers the whole country, such as the GodsView Canada wildfire page. It groups recent satellite heat detections into fire clusters and breaks them down by province. For anything official, like a fire's name, size, status or an evacuation order, go to the province or territory that is fighting it. Canada has no single national fire service, and that is the main thing to understand before you go looking for a map.

This guide covers each layer in turn: the national situation from CIFFC, the federal fire danger maps from Natural Resources Canada, the provincial agencies, and the alerts that tell you when to leave.

See fires in Canada right now

Who runs wildfire response in Canada?

Wildfire response in Canada is split three ways.

1. Provinces and territories fight the fires on their land. Each has its own agency, its own map and its own way of naming fires.
2. CIFFC, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, is the coordinator. It describes itself as "a not-for-profit corporation owned and operated by the federal, provincial and territorial wildland fire management agencies to coordinate resource sharing, mutual aid, and information sharing" (CIFFC). When one province runs short of crews or aircraft, CIFFC moves them from another.
3. Natural Resources Canada runs the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS), which maps fire weather, fire danger and satellite fire detections for the whole country.

Federal lands such as national parks have their own fire management, and local fire departments handle fires inside towns. Most people searching for a "Canada fire map" want one of three things: where the fires are, how bad things are nationally, or whether they need to leave. Each comes from a different place.

The national picture: CIFFC situation reports and preparedness levels

CIFFC publishes the National Situation Report. It gives "a summary of the national preparedness level, fire statistics, resources & responses, prescribed fires, priority fires, mobilizations, demobilizations, and US fire activity" (CIFFC). If you read news coverage that says "Canada is at level 5", this is where the number comes from.

The National Preparedness Level (NPL) runs from 1 to 5. CIFFC defines them like this (CIFFC NPL):

There is also an Agency Preparedness Level (APL) for each province or territory, from 1 (Low) to 5 (Extreme). Duty officers in each agency set it every day as part of their submission to the national report, based on fire danger, the current and expected fire load over seven days, their own resources, and whether they can answer requests from CIFFC (CIFFC APL).

So a quiet national level can sit alongside one province at APL 5. If you live in that province, the provincial number is the one that matters.

Fire danger and fire weather: what CWFIS shows

The Canadian Wildland Fire Information System is run by the Canadian Forest Service at Natural Resources Canada. It produces "daily fire weather, fire behaviour and fire occurrence maps" from more than 2,500 weather stations and satellite data (Natural Resources Canada).

Its main pieces:

• The Fire Weather Index (FWI) System. Part of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System, it "accounts for the effects of fuel moisture and weather conditions on fire behaviour". High numbers mean fires start easily and spread fast.
• The Fire Behaviour Prediction (FBP) System. Estimates how fast a fire could spread, how much fuel it would burn and how intense it would be.
• Fire M3. Uses satellite images to find actively burning fires and estimate the area burned each day and each year.
• An interactive map that layers fire weather, hotspots and active fires.

The Canadian FWI is used well beyond Canada. Europe's EFFIS and Spain's weather service both build their fire danger forecasts on it, which the Italy and Europe wildfire map guide covers.

One line on the Natural Resources Canada page is easy to miss: the CWFIS is "not designed for operational fire management purposes". It is a national monitoring and reporting tool. For a specific fire near you, go to the province.

Provincial and territorial wildfire agencies

Each province and territory runs its own wildfire service, and the larger ones publish their own fire maps or dashboards. The territories, Atlantic provinces and others follow the same pattern. These are the sources for a fire's official name, size and status, and for fire bans.

On GodsView, each province has its own page as well, for example fires in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario. Each one lists the satellite fire clusters in that province and links back to the official agency.

British Columbia

BC Wildfire Service gives each fire a stage of control (Government of B.C.):

• Out of Control: the fire "is spreading or is anticipated to spread beyond the current perimeter, or control line".
• Being Held: the fire is projected "to remain within the current perimeter, control line or boundary".
• Under Control: the fire "is not projected to spread beyond the current perimeter".
• Out: the fire "has been extinguished or winter conditions are present and the wildfire will not spread".

BC also flags some fires as a Wildfire of Note: "an incident that is creating an increased level of interest", marked so it is easier to find response information on the map.

Alberta

Alberta Wildfire uses similar words with one extra status (Alberta). Out of control means the fire "is growing or expected to grow". Being held means it is "not expected to grow beyond its existing boundaries". Under control means it "has received sufficient suppression action to ensure no further spread". Turned over means "responsibility for the extinguishment of the wildfire has been returned to another agency". The province offers a map, a dashboard and apps for iPhone and Android.

Ontario

Ontario's wildland fire season "extends from April 1 to October 31". Its interactive map shows active fires, current fire danger and restricted fire zones, and draws perimeters for fires over 40 hectares (Ontario). The province reports fires separately for its Northeast and Northwest regions. To report a fire, Ontario lists 310-FIRE (3473) for the north and 911 south of the French and Mattawa rivers.

Quebec

In Quebec, wildfire protection is run by SOPFEU, the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu. It is "responsible for organizing the protection of communities, strategic infrastructure, and forested areas against wildfires within its designated territory", and its protection plan sets out an intensive protection zone and the crews and equipment assigned to it (SOPFEU).

Why a satellite map and an agency map disagree

People often open two maps and see different numbers. Both can be right.

A satellite hotspot map, like the one GodsView builds from NASA's VIIRS detections, shows heat seen from orbit during the last day or two. The satellites pass over most places about twice a day. A large fire shows up as many dots, a small one as a few, and a fire under thick smoke or cloud can be missed between passes. Gas flares and industrial sites can also look like fire. The NASA FIRMS explainer goes through these limits in detail.

An agency map shows the fires the agency is tracking, each with a number, a size in hectares and a status. It includes fires that are too small or too cool for a satellite to see, and it keeps fires listed after the heat has dropped below detection.

So the satellite map is good for "where is it burning right now, everywhere?" and the agency map is the answer to "how big is this fire, and is it under control?"

On the GodsView Canada page, you get the count of fire clusters and hotspot detections for the last 24 or 48 hours, a table by province and territory, the largest clusters named by the nearest city, and the cities with fires nearby. If you want a view around one town, the near-me pages do that, for example wildfires near Kelowna. The live wildfire map shows the same detections on the full map, worldwide.

The 2023 season: how big was it?

The 2023 season is the one most Canadians remember, and the numbers are still the reference point for every season since.

NASA's Earth Observatory, citing CIFFC figures, reported that an estimated 18.4 million hectares burned during the 2023 season, and that CIFFC had counted 6,595 fires by October. It compares that with an average of about 2.5 million hectares a year (NASA Earth Observatory).

Natural Resources Canada's own write-up of the season uses a different tally: "more than 6,000 fires had torched a staggering 15 million hectares", more than double the previous record from 1989. The same article says that by mid-July there were 29 fires larger than 100,000 hectares, that Quebec's largest single fire reached 460,000 hectares, and that Canada had its warmest May to July in more than 80 years (Natural Resources Canada).

The two totals differ because they come from different datasets and points in the season. Either way, 2023 burned several times the normal area, and it remains the record.

How evacuation alerts work in Canada

Fire maps tell you where fires are. They do not tell you to leave. That decision comes from local authorities: a municipality, a regional district or a First Nation, working with the fire agency.

In British Columbia, the three stages are written plainly (EmergencyInfoBC):

• Evacuation Alert: "Be ready to leave on short notice."
• Evacuation Order: "You are at risk. Leave the area immediately."
• Evacuation Rescinded: "All is currently safe and you can return home."

Other provinces use similar steps with their own wording. Check your municipality or First Nation's website for the exact areas covered.

Alert Ready

Alert Ready is Canada's national emergency alerting system. It "delivers critical and potentially life-saving alerts to Canadians through television, radio and LTE-connected and compatible wireless devices" (Alert Ready). You do not install anything. A compatible phone connected to the LTE network in the target area gets the alert with a loud tone.

In B.C., the province added wildfires to the alert types in spring 2022, and Alert Ready alerts are "used to tell people they need to evacuate immediately because of an emergency where there is imminent danger, such as a wildfire or flooding" (Government of B.C.). That means a phone alert is usually reserved for an order to leave now, not for every alert.

Alertable

Alertable is a different thing. It is an opt-in service that many municipalities use to send local emergency notices, by app, email, text or phone call. The City of Burnaby puts it simply: "Alertable and Alert Ready are not the same", and Alertable is free to residents who sign up (City of Burnaby). If your town uses Alertable, sign up before fire season. Many evacuation alerts, as opposed to orders, go out this way.

How to watch a fire near your home or cottage

If you want to know when a fire comes near a place you care about, set it up once instead of checking maps every day.

1. Sign up for your local alerts. Alertable or your municipality's own system, plus the provincial wildfire app if there is one.
2. Bookmark the provincial map and the CIFFC situation report for context.
3. Add the place on GodsView. On My places, add a home, a cottage or a relative's town and press Watch. GodsView checks a 50 km circle around it for wildfires, along with severe weather warnings, earthquakes, floods and bad air. Alerts go to the app, browser push and email, and need a paid plan. The alerts tutorial walks through it, and the disaster alerts guide compares the options.
4. Watch the smoke, too. Smoke often travels much further than fire. City pages such as air quality in Vancouver show the current reading, and weather warnings list official alerts, including Environment Canada warnings.

If you are trying to answer a quicker question, "is there a fire near me right now?", the fire near me guide is the shorter version of this page.

What a Canada fire map cannot tell you

Every map in this guide has limits, and it helps to know them before a fire is close.

• Satellite maps do not show perimeters. A cluster of dots shows where heat was seen, not the edge of the fire.
• Danger maps do not show fires. They show how the weather would treat a fire if one started.
• National numbers hide local detail. A national level 2 says nothing about the fire on your road.
• None of these maps is an evacuation order. Only your local authority issues those.

Use the satellite map to see what is happening, the agency map to understand it, and local alerts to decide what to do.