Forestry expert on Maritime wildfires (Video Interview)
CTV, Oct 17, 2025 “Forestry expert Anthony Taylor discusses the wildfires that burned in the Maritimes this summer.”
Rough transcript.
CTV: Welcome back. The Maritimes and Atlantic Canada saw its size share of wildfires burning this summer some of them including the long lake wildfire in Annapolis County burned deeper Wildfire in Annapolis county burned deeper, harder and longer than any other. wildfire we’ve seen around here.
Scientists say it’s not just climate change and the drought conditions that’s causing this wildfire danger, but also the way our forests are managed. Let’s bring in doctor Anthony Taylor, he’s an expert in forestry at the University of New Brunswick who researches and studies how climate change and forest composition all impact the risk of forest fires.
He joins us tonight from Fredericton. thanks for being here Anthony. How was your summer?
AT: It was good…’had a good summer but as you can imagine it was a busy summer as well given all the conditions with weather and how it affected our forests here in the Maritimes
CTV: No kidding. You know it’s October now but we had several major forest fires still burning out of control in Nova Scotia and one in New Brunswick.
I think that fact may have shocked some people to learn this but you know I’m wondering if this is kind of the new normal ?
AT: yeah well you know I don’t know if the new normal is the right word but it’s definitely we should expect more weather like this into the future and that’s largely a consequence of inaction on climate change over the past 20 or 30 years. Like the weather that we’re seeing this year that’s behind a lot of the fire activity in the drought activity that we’re witnessing and observing here in the Maritimes is primarily related to climate change and there’s a certain amount of climate change now baked into the system.
So we can expect a certain amount of warming over the next 20 or 30 years, and so we could also with that expect years with that expect years with more weather like we experienced this past summer.
CTV: Right, incredible drought conditions drier than we’ve seen for a long time but I’m wondering from your research, what are some of the other biggest factors that are driving this increase in wildfire activity here in the Maritimes?
AT: when it comes to the wildfire situation in particular, like the single biggest factor driving whether or not we experienced wildfire, is the weather. And the weathers is controlled by climate.
So you need to have weather that’s warm and dry and that’s what’s conducive to wildfire.
The next biggest factor after that of course is ignition, and one thing to keep in mind with the Maritimes is that more than 90% of our wildfires that do occur, including this year, are from human ignition, human starts.
So you know, I like we like to say in order to control this, we want to try to reduce and stop climate change, but the next best thing after that is to be fire-smart around the woods. You remember Smokey Bear, you know you could stop a forest fire, and that’s never been truer than ever. 2:47
CTV: Right. First you mention climate change, the climate, the environment, the hotter drier summers versus say the way our forests are managed. How are they combining to make the current conditions that we see in our forests?
AT: Well, just like as we’re discussing after like the weather of course being the most important factor and then the next thing they ignition, the other thing that comes into play then is yeah the condition of the forest, the composition of the forest and how we manage to forest, those are things that also influence the amount of wildfire or the intensity of wildfire.
And so things like forest composition, they do matter, forests that are dominated by more hardwoods, you know mixed-wood type forests, they are less flammable than dense conifer forest.
So if you have a landscape dominated by more conifers then when you’re in a good fire year, then that’s the landscape that is going to be more vulnerable to wildfire.
CTV: We’re seeing some images on our screen while you’re chatting, some of the forests 2:45 and the coniferous trees that are there you’ve warned in some of your research that replanting softwood species after clearcuts can make our forests more flammable, or perhaps vulnerable to forest fire dangers. How is clear-cutting practices increase the wildfire risk around here?
AT: Well the linkage between clear-cutting and wildfire, I wouldn’t say is as clear. You know the where it comes into play would be that if you clear-cut an area and you planted with conifers, which is common practice here because that’s what our industry relies on, primarily is conifers, well then you’re planting a forest that is you’re vulnerable to wildfire when you have weather conditions that are conducive to wildfire.
So that that is something to think about moving forward. I’m not suggesting that we stop planting conifers by any means, ’cause it’s an important feedstock to our industry
But if you’re a private woodlot owner and you have a woodlot that’s you know a large continuous softwood area, you may want to consider maybe breaking that up and to either planting some hardwoods in with that, or you know encouraging hardwoods, or strategically designing your wood lots of that you have conifer stands mixed with hardwood stands to act as a natural firebreak.
CTV: let me jump into this question. Where we’re quickly running at a time, unfortunately, but if you could change one thing about how say Nova Scotia or New Brunswick manage their forest, what do you think would make the biggest difference in and reducing future wildfire risk? 5:15
AT: well you know the biggest thing that would make the biggest difference is if we all took climate change more seriously and made a stronger attempt to reduce the amount of climate change that’s happening.
But on the on the management side of things, I think that what we’re going to need to do and think about more seriously as a society is you know things like when managing the forest, ensuring that there is adequate diversity that we have hardwood stands that we have mixedwood stands and strategically use those as fire breaks in amongst per our software stands.
CTV: I think it’s safe to say that these fires are becoming more on the regular, in 2023 we saw the worst wildfire in Nova Scotia, this summer we saw the longest burning event in our in our history, but it’s also impacting a lot of people’s lives. I think of the people that are having to move, the populations being spread out, to evacuate’ the air quality but we also weren’t allowed to go into the woods for three weeks here in Nova Scotia. This is really having an impact and maybe ruining peoples summers.
I’m wondering what can we learn from this and is there is there a new approach we should be taking?
AT: Well you know like I agree [with what] the provinces have done there in terms of the fire bans this summer and actually [this] goes back to an earlier point we were talking about, how you know, next to the weather, the next most important thing affecting wildfires occurring is ignition, and like I was saying most of the ignitions that occur are human caused.
And so a lot of the fires we are experiencing is because of human carelessness… so again like being smart in the forest when you’re playing pr working the forest, but you know if you’re in times of extreme dryness and fire risk, then you know that’s when those policies come into play and they’re useful because it reduces the amount of exposure of forest to human ignition.
CTV: I know as a is pretty hard for a lot of people not be able to go into the woods for three weeks time, and hopefully we don’t have to go back there, but unfortunately we will have to leave it there as well. Doctor Taylor I want to thank you for joining us, this is a big topic and it’s on a lot of people’s minds. So thanks for joining us today.
AT: … thanks very interesting thanks for having me Jesse.
CTV: That’s forestry expert and researcher Anthony Taylor.