You might think 2026 is the worst year of fires given the huge clouds of smoke that blanketed the Midwest and Northeast earlier this month. But last year was actually worse in terms of the number of acres burned. Whether it will be the worst year on record or not, we need to come to grips with the fact that millions of acres of forest burn every year. Environmentalists should spend their political capital to manage government forests better rather than lobbying to restrict what kinds of cars or stoves we can use. 

While forest fires are catastrophic in their own right, destroying millions of acres of forest and the plants and animals in them as well as human structures, they also release more carbon dioxide than many countries. Canada‘s wildfire season started slowly but has expanded to more than 750 fires and about 6.9 million acres burned (compared to an average of 6.1 million) by mid-July.