As Canada wildfires choke US with smoke, Republicans demand action. But
not on climate change
[August 15, 2025]
By TAMMY WEBBER
The sternly worded statements and letters are filled with indignation
and outrage: Republican U.S. lawmakers say Canada has done too little to
contain wildfires and smoke that have fouled the air in several states
this summer.
“Instead of enjoying family vacations at Michigan’s beautiful lakes and
campgrounds, for the third summer in a row, Michiganders are forced to
breathe hazardous air as a result of Canada’s failure to prevent and
control wildfires,” read a statement last week from the state’s GOP
congressional delegation, echoing similar missives from Republicans in
Iowa, New York, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
They’ve demanded more forest thinning, prescribed burns and other
measures to prevent fires from starting. They've warned the smoke is
hurting relations between the countries and suggested the U.S. could
make it an issue in tariff talks.
But what they haven't done is acknowledge the role of climate change — a
glaring and shortsighted omission, according to climate scientists. It
also ignores the outsized U.S. contribution to heat-trapping gases from
burning fossil fuels like coal and gas that cause more intense heat
waves and droughts, which in turn set the stage for more destructive
wildfires, scientists say.
“If anything, Canada should be blaming the U.S. for their increased
fires,” said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell
Climate Research Center in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
On Tuesday, the Canadian government announced almost $46 million in
funding for wildfire prevention and risk assessment research projects.
But Corey Hogan, parliamentary secretary to the federal energy and
natural resources minister, said international cooperation is needed.
“There’s no people that want to do more about wildfires than Canadians,”
Hogan said. “But I think this also underlines the international
challenges that are brought on by climate change ... we need to globally
tackle this problem.”
The country has “been fighting wildfires in this country at
unprecedented rates since 2023,” when Canada saw its largest wildfire on
record, said Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire
Chiefs. This year’s first fire started in April, one of the earliest on
record, and 2025 is now the second-worst year.
As of Thursday, more than 700 wildfires were burning across the country,
two-thirds of them out of control, with more than 28,000 square miles
(72,520 square kilometers) burned in 4,400 wildfires so far this year,
according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. That's almost
five times the surface area that's burned so far in the U.S. this year.
Most wildfires are started by people, sometimes on purpose but mostly by
mistake, though McMullen said lightning is the culprit in many of
Canada's fires, especially in remote areas.
McMullen said he has no interest in debating the role of climate change,
but data show that something has changed. Sloughs and basins have dried
up and water that once lapped at people’s back doors in Canada’s lake
communities now is often hundreds of feet away.
“People can make up their own mind as to why that is,” he said. “But
something clearly has changed.”
Denying climate change
President Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax — a belief
echoed by many in the GOP — and his administration has worked to
dismantle and defund federal climate science and data collection, with
little to no pushback from Republicans in Congress.
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A helicopter flies by the Wesley Ridge wildfire near Cameron Lake
where an out-of-control fire continues to burn near Coombs, British
Columbia, Aug. 3, 2025. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press via AP)
 He’s proposed to revoke the
scientific finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases
endanger public health and welfare — the central basis for U.S.
climate change action. He's declared a national energy emergency to
expedite fossil fuel development, canceled grants for renewable
energy projects and ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris
Climate Agreement, aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 2.7
degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels.
Minnesota state Rep. Elliott Engen, a Republican, said he believes
in climate change, but now is not the time to discuss it “because we
have folks with asthma who aren’t able to go outside the entirety of
the summer.”
“That's not an immediate fix for my constituents; that sounds like a
blame game without a solution being presented,” said Engen, among a
group of GOP lawmakers who asked the International Joint Commission
to review Canada’s wildfire management practices.
Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine said the wildfires are
jeopardizing health and air quality in her state, too, but faulted
Republicans for failing to meet the crisis head on by acting on
climate change.
“Rather than accept this reality and work together to find
proactive, common-sense solutions for preventing and mitigating
these fires, Republicans are burying their heads in the sand,” she
said.
Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore, a Democrat, criticized her Republican
colleagues’ letter to Canada’s U.S. ambassador, saying those “who
are in denial about climate change shouldn’t be writing letters
prescribing people’s actions to try to contain it.”
Difficult solutions
McMullen, the Canadian wildfire expert, said battling the fires
isn’t as simple as many seem to believe.
The country and its territories are vast and fires are often in
remote areas where the best — and sometimes only — course of action
if there are no residents or structures is to let them burn or “it
is going to just create another situation for us to deal with in a
year or two or 10 or 20 years from now,” McMullen said.
Prescribed burns to clear underbrush and other ignition sources are
used in some areas, but aren’t practical or possible in some forests
and prairies that are burning, experts said.
McMullen has advocated for a Canadian forest fire coordination
agency to help deploy firefighters and equipment where they're
needed.
But as for stopping worsening fires, “I don’t think there’s much
they can do,” said University of Michigan climate scientist Jonathan
Overpeck. He noted that hotter temperatures are melting permafrost
in northern Canada, which dries out and makes the vast boreal
forests far more likely to burn.
Instead, the two countries should collaborate on climate change
solutions "because our smoke is their smoke, their smoke is ours,”
Overpeck said. “As long as this trend of warming and drying
continues, we’re going to get a worsening problem.
“The good news is ... we know what the cause is ... we can stop it
from getting worse.”
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