Is there a way we can prevent them from occurring in the first place, or is it inevitable during the summer months?
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In Alberta where there where horrifying wildfires this year it was caused by grass stubble that is when the farmers harvest the last canola/sorgum/grass/wheat they leave an inch or 2 of the stalk still in the ground. This allows this root system to remain during the winter. Alberts winters are very cold. See -40 degrees both units of measurement work. If you till the land pre winter you end up in a situation like the great depression where all the top soil erodes away and the soil quality decays rapidly. So the farmers leave the grass stubble because its good farming.
This year was a drought year for Alberta they are actually quite rare. Seasons up in western Canada are a little delayed compared to the south. Basically April showers are snow and may flowers are rain etc. Were a month behind probanly becsuse we do not want to follow Ottowas shitty example. My little joke. So this grass stubble is no problemo if may is very wet because the grass starts to grow and the new green shoots will not burn in most normal years these little grasslings are a fire break. In a drought year this grass stubble is basically gasoline awaiting a flame.
Now if you arent from Alberta there are a few things you need to know about Alberta. First its fucking huge, like you can fit whole europien nations inside with room to spair. Second outside its large cities Alberts is 95-98% cultivated farmlands. Southern Alberta anyway. I think wood buffalo national park is the biggest area thats not farm land, that and the rockey mountians. But The VAST majority of Alberta is cultivated farm land and ranches. Aka miles and fucking miles of grass stubble with basically nothing in the way to make a fire break. Any ignition source starts a chain reaction and generates enough snoke to be a problem for as far as California because if you remember the first thing Alberta is fucking huge.
Sadly it is almost impossible to fight this type of fire because there are no real natural barriers. Becsuse rural Alberta is so sparcely populated it is also politically a waste of resources as fucking over farmers wont make them change the way they vote since you know the big C has been fucking over farmers in Alberta for 100 years and they still vote exclusivly for them.
The other reason they are hard to fight is because the area they take up is massive and they are rare. Even the most dedicated lefty in Alberta would have a hard time staffing an emergency fire response unit to be effective because it would cost billions to stop this type of fire. At least as far as I know. It is possible for Canada to enlist military personnel to assist in the effort but Alberta has BIG problems with working with the federal government so it is increidbly unlikely that any politician in Alberta would ask the feds for help, it would be political suicide.
I do not know about the cause of the eastern fires my guess is those are more foresty in nature which would explain why the smoke is so fucking bad. If you have ever tossed a spruce branch on a fire you will know why.
This may be opinion but the eastern fires are made MUCH WORSE by the fact that Canada does not do controlled burns as far as i know and well Canada shares something with Alberta, it is fucking huge and mostly filled with SPF trees
TLDR: Prairie wildfires are caused by intensive agricultural practices and are much rarer than forest fires.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadas-alberta-braces-wildfires-spread-winds-shift-2023-05-16/
some neat photos of the smoke blanketing Calgary, Alberta’s biggest City. Also some images of trees burning so maybe there was a forestry component to them.
http://www.iamcalgary.ca/dereks-top-5-must-visit-calgary-city-skyline-vantage-points/
if you scroll down there is the image of the peace bridge in clear weather can really show you the difference.
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