Size of Vancouver Island burned in 2023 Alberta wildfires: ABMI report

A group of researchers who studied the historic 2023 Alberta wildfires calls them “remarkable” at least in recent history.

A group of researchers who studied the historic 2023 Alberta wildfires calls them “remarkable” at least in recent history.

The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) found 6.6 per cent of Alberta’s forest burned, disturbing as much forest as the 11 previous years combined.

“We think around 32,000 square kilometers of forest burned so that's about the size of Vancouver Island,” said Brandon Allen, who is a senior terrestrial ecologist with the ABMI.

Its count is higher than the province’s estimate of 2.2 million hectares of land burned because it includes national parks, an area outside the Forest Protection Area (FPA).

“The boreal was quite heavily hit. Places like Wood Buffalo National Park, we estimate about 20 per cent of the area was burned,” Allen told CTV News Edmonton earlier this month.

An ABMI report states nearly 750,000 hectares was scorched in Wood Buffalo National Park, an area larger than Banff National Park.It called fires a “natural occurrence” in Alberta however it said 2023 was an “exceptional year”.

“Your upland forests, your lowland forests, your marshes, your bogs, they all seemed to be burdened relatively equal amounts. And same with how old the forests were as well,” said Allen.