In this summer of continuing extreme weather and devastating impacts, Canada has been particularly hard hit.
As of Sunday, July 16, 881 wildfires were blazing there, according to data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Since the start of the year, 4,157 fires have burned across nearly 39,000 square miles of land — an area slightly bigger than the State of Maine.
That tally of torching — the result of a continuing combination of unusual heat, drought, and dry lightning — has already blown away the record for most land burned in a year in Canada. It's also about 4.5 times the annual average of land burned there between 1983 and 2022 — and much of the wildfire season is still yet to come.
Satellites have been providing both broad-scale and close-up views of the fires, driving home both their scope and ferocity. The image at the top of ...
