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The 2026 wildfire season is now the NWT’s third-worst this century in terms of area burned, provisional data suggests.
The record summer of 2023 saw about 4.2 million hectares burn according to territorial government figures. The “summer of smoke,” 2014, involved 3.4 million hectares burning.
Preliminary data for 2026 now shows a burn area of 1.694 million hectares for the year, surpassing the GNWT’s total of 1.688 million hectares in 2024.
At least a million hectares of the NWT have now burned in each of the past four years, a level of sustained fire activity unmatched in the territory’s records. By comparison, just 10,000 hectares burned in 2009 and about 20,000 in each of 2018 and 2020.
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As of Saturday, about 230 wildfires remained active in the NWT – a figure that includes fires managed by the territory’s wildfire agency and some managed by Parks Canada. That’s more than double the 110 fires burning in British Columbia, the next most active Canadian jurisdiction.
Even as NWT Fire issued its final daily update of the season on Friday, Fort Simpson – evacuated for several weeks earlier this summer – was under a smoke advisory. Crews are still working on multiple fires near the village.
Paying tribute to firefighters in its last daily update, NWT Fire said 2026 had involved “challenging conditions with fires threatening communities across the territory.”
