Drought as the main climatic driver of major boreal fire seasons over the last century in eastern Canada

Bibliographic Data

ID15547935
AuthorsPierre-Luc Couillard (0000-0002-2302-748X, Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife, corresponding author), Jason Laflamme (0000-0003-4142-4320, Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife), Mathieu Frégeau (0000-0002-0042-6883, Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife), Lady Cardona (0009-0009-1438-8142, Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife), Claude Morneau (0009-0004-4561-3385, Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife), Serge Payette (0000-0001-5809-6955, Université Laval)
Year2026
Volume21
Issue5
Pages054016-054016
Publication date2026-02-24
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/ae49a0
OpenAlexW7131313072
LanguageEN
References cited47

Projected global changes are anticipated to alter the fire regimes within boreal ecosystems. Understanding the relationship between fire activity and climate change requires a long-term dataset of annual burned area. Currently, there are only a limited number of long-term fire histories derived from detailed fieldwork. In this study, we used a spatially explicit reconstruction of forest fires from 1890 to 2024 across boreal Quebec based on historical forest maps, satellite images, and more than 3500 fire scars and 4800 establishment trees. Over the past 135 years, the fire regime has been marked by numerous minor seasons, punctuated by a few major ones, including those between 1915–1923, 1941 and, more recently, 2023. Our results indicate that severe droughts more than temperature have been the main driver of major fire seasons. Our findings indicate that a long-term record of fires provides a clearer understanding of how temperature increases, and precipitation deficits interact to influence the extent of burned areas. An increase in the intensity of climate change in the future is expected to further disturb the frequency of occurrence of major fire seasons

Boreal · Boreal ecosystem · Climate change · Fire ecology · Fire history · Fire regime · Precipitation · Taiga · Climate change and permafrost · Fire effects on ecosystems · Landslides and related hazards

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