This editorial was written and published by the Toronto Star on August 22, 2023.

Canadians on the run in the face of a natural disaster — it’s been a distressing summer theme.

In this latest crisis, forest fires have displaced thousands of residents in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories in recent days.

Yellowknife, the territorial capital with some 20,000 residents, has been evacuated, an exercise challenged by its isolation.

In B.C., where some 386 fires are burning, there were apocalyptic nighttime scenes as the red glow of the blaze advanced relentlessly down the hillsides toward West Kelowna.

These communities are no stranger to the dangers of wildfires. Yellowknife was threatened by fire in 2014. In 2003, fire destroyed more than 200 homes in Kelowna.

Yet the level of devastation nationwide this fire season is difficult to comprehend. There have been 5,812 fires in all, burning some 15 million hectares. Other years have seen more fires — there were more than 10,000 fire starts in 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1998. The total area burned this year has far outpaces them all, more than double the previous high of seven million hectares in 1995.

“The number of fires is well above average for this time of year, and well above the average for area burned for this time of year,” according to the latest situation report.

The devastation continues. At the start of this week, there were 1,041 fires nationwide, 656 of those out of control.

Some may want to dismiss this year’s scale of wildfires as a statistical blip, a natural anomaly. Yet other extreme weather that has seen severe storms through Ontario, including tornadoes, flooding in Nova Scotia and the hottest July on record around the globe, point to a new reality we need to prepare for.

In the case of forest fires, that means assessing whether the available resources — firefighters, support crews, aircraft — are enough to battle record blazes.

The experiences so far point to a system under stress. The country has been at national preparedness Level 5 since early May. That means that national resources are fully committed, demand for interagency resources is “extreme” and the potential for new significant fires is “high to extreme.”

Canada has tapped the assistance of firefighters from abroad. We’re grateful for their help. Canadian Armed Forces personnel have also been deployed.

But the strains of this fire season underscores that continued efforts are needed to muster more resources to tackle the fires in the seasons ahead. That would build on initiatives announced in June by Ottawa that included training for community-based firefighters.

In its latest action plan, the Wildland Fire Management Working Group, a joint federal-provincial group, noted that climate change together with urban expansion into wildland areas were “rapidly accelerating” the risk of fires. It highlighted the “profound social, economic and environmental” impacts of frequent, serious fires, but also said such fires are essential for forest health. “As a country, we must be united in our approach to adapt to, and live with, wildland fire,” it stated.

It said that mitigation and prevention should be made a top priority. And it underscored that firefighting agencies will have to adapt. In the face of rapidly changing wildfires, “traditional response and suppression tactics are becoming less effective while agencies are being taxed beyond their collective capabilities.”

The disaster this month in the Hawaiian town of Lahaina and in 2016 in Fort McMurray stand as terrifying examples of how quickly a community can be scorched by a raging wildfire.

For those in the path of these relentless fires, there are feelings of hopelessness, uncertainty and despair. As we assess the risks of our changing world, it will require another sort of preparation for the next flood warning, storm alerts and fire evacuation that test us psychologically too.

Many Canadians have had their lives upended by natural disasters this year — some through temporary disruptions and others permanently, with homes and livelihoods lost.

Coping with all this will demand a collective generosity of spirit to help neighbours and strangers cope. We see that on display now in the assistance provided to those displaced by the wildfires. Albertans in particular have opened their doors to the evacuees from the Northwest Territories.

The weeks ahead hold more fires and likely more evacuations. This season has been more than a record-breaker for fires, a year when extreme weather became real for many Canadians. It may be a preview of the future.