British Columbia's historic 2018 wildfire season has topped Environment Canada's list of the most significant weather events of the year.
"For the second year running, British Columbia faced a province-wide state of emergency... Though the season started late, it made up for lost time," the agency said in an article published to its website Thursday. "By Aug. 8, there were 460 simultaneous wildfires—more than any single day in 2017—with 25 of notable size."
B.C. saw one of the hottest and driest Mays on record this year, a factor Environment Canada said likely contributed to the severity of the wildfire season.
And despite a damp June that helped slow fire activity temporarily, things were ramping up again in July.
In the end, more than 2,000 wildfires scorched some 12,985 square kilometers of land, surpassing the previous record set just a year earlier at 1,500 wildfires and 12,160 square kilometers burned.
And the effects of the wildfires weren't just felt locally.
"By August, more than 10 million Canadians, from Victoria to the shores of Lake Superior, were breathing in the smoke from Western fires," the agency said. "Across the West, air-quality alerts became a fact of life for weeks, the smoke-polluted air endangering the health of the elderly, very young, and anyone living with respiratory disease."
The list also included the global summer heatwave that caused record temperatures in parts of the country as well as hurricane-force gusts that caused $1 billion in damage across Ontario and Quebec.
The tornadoes that hit the Ottawa-Gatineau area in September and severe spring flood in Southern B.C.—which the agency said contributed to the wildfire season—also made the top 10.
A detailed list is available on Environment Canada's website.
