Where Do Investigations Into 2023’s Arsons Amid Record Wildfires Stand?

An aircraft (C) flies near a wildfire burning near Barrington Lake in Shelburne County, N.S., on May 31, 2023. The Canadian Press/HO-Communications Nova Scotia

With two individuals already charged with multiple counts of arson this year following Canada’s worst wildfire season on record in 2023, police say more investigations are continuing in provinces across the country, with several focused on Alberta specifically.

Alberta RCMP say 13 arson-related charges have been laid following investigations by the RCMP Forestry Crimes Unit and Alberta RCMP. Two larger-scale investigations from 2023 are being reviewed by the Crown.

There are also “a number of open investigations currently being investigated,” Alberta RCMP media relations manager Fraser Logan told The Epoch Times by email on Jan. 24.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) says the 2023 wildfire season in Canada was “the most devastating in recent history.” By the end of the season, “more than 6,500 fires had burned a total of 18.4 million hectares (more than seven times the 10-year average of 2.5 million),” NRCan communications adviser Shireen Ali told The Epoch Times in an emailed response on Feb. 2.

Ms. Ali noted that over 235,000 Canadians were evacuated from their homes and communities and that “unusually high temperatures and prolonged periods of drought across the country, largely due to climate change, created the perfect conditions for wildfires to ignite and spread rapidly.”

With thick smoke blanketing cities across North America, various politicians in the Liberal government also appeared to put the blame solely on climate change.

“We know that because of increased global temperatures and climate change, we will have more episodes like forest fires,” Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault told CTV News in June 2023. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed that around the same time in a post on X, saying that Canada is “seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change.”

As the wildfires spread, so too did theories that the fires were being purposefully lit, though some were debunked.

NRCan, for its part, said that according to data from the National Forestry Database from 1990 through 2020, 52 percent of wildfires in Canada were caused by humans and 48 percent were caused by lightning. Ms. Ali said that “NRCan cannot comment on wildfires caused by arson” and referred The Epoch Times to the RCMP Divisions and local policing authorities.

Charges in Quebec, Nova Scotia

In January 2024, a Quebec man pleaded guilty to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life. The man, who had posted conspiracy theories online that forest fires were being deliberately set by the government, was allegedly responsible for starting a series of fires that led to the evacuation of around 500 homes in the small community of Chapais, about 425 kilometres northwest of Quebec City.

That same month, a Nova Scotia man was charged with allegedly lighting a fire on May 26, 2023, that grew to become one of the province’s largest wildfires in history. The Barrington Lake wildfire southwest of Shelburne, N.S., burned 23,000 hectares before being brought under control on June 13 and then extinguished over a month later.

The fire forced the evacuation of more than 6,000 people and destroyed 60 homes and cottages as well as 150 other structures. The man faces charges of lighting a fire on privately owned land without the owner’s permission, failing to make reasonable efforts to prevent the spread of a fire, and leaving a fire unattended.

The Shelburne County RCMP detachment told The Epoch Times that it initiated an in-depth criminal investigation into the fire but determined from the gathered evidence that the incident “did not meet the threshold for criminal charges, concluding our file.”

Provinces Investigating Fires 

Back in June 2023, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her government would bring in outside arson investigators to investigate a string of wildfires that had no known cause, saying she was “very concerned that there are arsonists.”

The premier’s comments came a month after a man was charged with 10 counts of arson following a series of wildfires and blazes in and around Cold Lake, Alberta, according to the RCMP.

Other provinces have also indicated they will be investigating cases of arson if and when they arise.

The B.C. Wildfire Service estimates that 50 fires from 2023, or about 2.2 percent, could be attributed to arson or suspicious activity. It told The Epoch Times that natural resources officers in the Ministry of Forests investigate human-caused wildfires, and if they determine it was started under suspicious or criminal circumstances, “the RCMP may assist, become formally involved, or may inherit the investigation altogether.”

The Nova Scotia RCMP also told The Epoch Times that it had in September 2023 concluded its investigation into the Tantallon fire in suburban Halifax earlier that year and provided the gathered information to the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Renewables.

The detachment found that with the Tantallon fire, which destroyed an estimated 200 homes or structures in May 2023, there was “no information to suggest the cause was due to negligence or criminal matter.”

The Saskatchewan RCMP said that while its database does not allow officers to search arson files by fire types, based on a “preliminary search of arsons under current investigation and speaking with police officers that would investigate such files, we are not aware of ongoing arson investigations related to forest fires in 2023.”

The Canadian Press contributed to the report.