Danielle Smith went on Ryan Jespersen’s “Real Talk” today, and – faced with a question about climate change and its impact on wildfires – dove directly into conspiracy theories about Alberta’s wildfires being deliberately caused by arsonists, giving a Trumpian response about there being “stories about arson”, and telling us that Alberta will bring in fire investigators from outside the Province.

She asserted that there are almost 175 wildfires with “no known cause”, and implied that causes other than arson, like lightning, should be easy to trace.

Alberta On Fire

To date, there have been 611 wildfires in Alberta’s ‘forest protection area’ this year. According to Alberta’s Wildfire Dashboard (which regularly updates), over 1.2 million hectares have been burned in this year’s fires.

The number of wildfires isn’t all that extraordinary, compared to the last several years. There were more than 500 wildfires, by this date, in each of 2018, 2019, and 2021. However, the size of these fires, and the difficulty of bringing them under control, is another matter: 2019 is the only other recent year with fires on anything even approaching this gravity, with about 60% of the burned hectares that we’ve seen thus far this year. The other years? Tiny fractions.

Of those 611, the Dashboard lists 104 as being caused by lightning, 354 as being ‘human caused’, and 153 as being ‘under investigation’.

In fact, most wildfires are typically caused by human activity – but inadvertently. Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang explained to CNN that, when we say that many of this year’s wildfires have human causes, that “could be anything ranging from sparks created by trains to people being careless where they throw their cigarette butts.”

There is no credible reason to believe that any of this year’s destructive wildfires were deliberately set. AFP reports that an Alberta Wildfire spokesperson attributed the fires, and their rapid spread, to weather conditions, and that an RCMP spokesperson confirmed that there is “no evidence” to support a concerted arson campaign.

Seeds of Conspiracy

The conspiracy theory appears to derive from two things that happened in early May: Parkland County Tweeted that firefighters had responded to 4 fires in 5 days that appeared to be intentionally set; and Cold Lake RCMP announced an arrest in connection with a string of wildfire arsons.

However, Parkland County later clarified that the four fires referred to were not connected to the major fire in the area and are still under investigation; and the Cold Lake RCMP arrest was in connection with wildfires from last year (along with other structure fires).

The theory, that there’s some coordinated effort to start these fires, has a range of iterations: PPC Leader and former CPC Cabinet Minister Max Bernier thinks that they’ve been started by ecoterrorists trying to boost their climate change campaign, as he linked a 2-year-old article about a serial arsonist arrested in June 2021; others thought that the fires were an attempt to keep rural Albertans from voting; or to try to give the Provincial NDP an election boost.

Fingerprints of Climate Change

What the conspiracy theories are trying to sidestep is the broader consensus that climate change is a contributing factor to the number and severity of wildfires: The climate is getting warmer in Western Canada – a difficult to deny reality, for anyone who has lived here for any length of time – with longer and more frequent heat waves that dry out the trees and forest litter; and earlier snow-melt, lengthening wildfire season.

All expectations are that this problem – which will have variations from year to year – will get gradually worse over the years to come.