Canada’s wildfire emissions in 2023 exceeded those of seven of the world’s ten largest national emitters. Copernicus estimated that Canada’s 2023 wildfires released approximately 480 megatonnes of carbon, equivalent to about 1.76 gigatonnes of CO₂—roughly twice the 882 million tonnes of CO₂ emitted by global aviation that year. In 2024 and 2025, wildfire emissions remained among the highest on record. At the same time, provincial policy has systematically reduced the managed forest harvest, deferred old-growth logging across millions of hectares, and shuttered 21 mills since 2023, eliminating 15,000 forest sector jobs.
These two developments are not unrelated. The policy of locking forests away from active management—while presented as environmental protection—is contributing to the very climate outcome it claims to prevent. Decadent, unmanaged stands are the fuel that feeds catastrophic wildfire. A well-managed, productive forest economy would reduce Canada’s climate impact more than any policy of exclusion.
The numbers that change everything
Canada’s 2023 wildfire emissions were 480 megatonnes of carbon—approximately 1.76 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent. To put this in context:
- Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions are approximately 700 Mt CO₂e per year.
- The 2023 wildfire season alone emitted the equivalent of more than 2.5 years of Canada’s entire emissions.
- Only India, China, and the United States released more carbon in 2022 than Canada’s wildfires did in 2023.
- The 2023 fires released nearly two times more carbon than global aviation.
In 2024, BC wildfire emissions in May alone surpassed twice the previous May record set in 2023. In 2025, Canada’s wildfire emissions were second only to 2023 in the 23-year Copernicus dataset.
These are not outliers. Climate scientists project that fire seasons of this intensity will become more frequent as temperatures rise, drought conditions intensify, and fuel loads accumulate in unmanaged forests.
Every climate policy in British Columbia—CleanBC, the carbon tax (now removed), the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the building electrification mandates—targets industrial emissions that total approximately 60 Mt CO₂e per year. The wildfire emissions from a single bad season dwarf decades of industrial emissions reduction effort. The province is attempting to bail out a boat with a teaspoon while ignoring the hole in the hull.
The policy fiasco—Harvest deferrals and mill closures
Since 2020, BC has implemented sweeping old-growth harvest deferrals across millions of hectares of forest. The stated purpose was environmental protection—preserving rare and threatened old-growth ecosystems.
The economic impact has been devastating. COFI projected that the deferrals would shut 14 to 20 sawmills and threaten 18,000 jobs. The reality has tracked close to that estimate:
- 21 permanent or indefinite mill closures since 2023.
- 15,000 forest sector jobs lost since 2022.
- In 2025 alone: Crofton pulp mill (Vancouver Island), West Fraser sawmill (100 Mile House), Drax pellet mill (Williams Lake)—all closed.
- Provincial timber revenue is projected to decline from $1.8 billion to $1.1 billion—a $700 million annual reduction driven primarily by harvest deferrals.
- Actual harvest in 2024 and 2025: approximately 32 million cubic metres, almost 43% below the allowable annual cut.
- The natural resources sector shed 9,300 jobs year-over-year from February 2025 to February 2026. Manufacturing lost 12,200 jobs over the same period.
The communities most affected such as Williams Lake, Quesnel, 100 Mile House, Houston, Burns Lake, Mackenzie are exactly the communities that face the highest wildfire risk. They are losing both their economic base and their fire management capacity simultaneously.
The workforce that understood how to manage forests—the fallers, the machine operators, the silviculture workers, the fire suppression crews drawn from the same labour pool—is dispersing if not outright disappearing. When a mill closes, the skilled workers leave. They do not come back when fire season arrives.s dispersing. When a mill closes, the skilled workers leave. They do not come back when fire season arrives.
The science—Why managed forests are better for the climate
The argument for locking forests away from harvest assumes that standing forests are always a carbon sink—absorbing more CO₂ than they release. This is true for young, actively growing forests. It is not true for old, decadent stands.
Forest ecology describes a carbon lifecycle. Young forests grow rapidly and absorb substantial CO₂ from the atmosphere. As forests mature, growth slows and carbon absorption declines. In very old stands—described in forestry as “decadent”—trees die, decay, and release stored carbon. The forest reaches a rough equilibrium where carbon absorption approximately equals carbon release. It is no longer a net sink.
Critically, these old decadent stands are also the most fire-prone. Dead wood, dense understory, and accumulated forest floor debris create the fuel conditions for catastrophic wildfire. When these stands burn, they release centuries of accumulated carbon in days.
A managed forest operates differently:
Harvest removes mature trees and converts them into wood products—lumber, engineered wood, furniture, paper. Carbon stored in wood products remains sequestered for decades to centuries. A wooden house built today will store the carbon in its framing for the lifetime of the structure.
Replanting after harvest establishes young, rapidly growing trees that absorb CO₂ at maximum rates. A well-managed rotation—harvest, replant, grow, harvest—maintains the forest as a perpetual carbon sink rather than allowing it to reach decadent equilibrium.
Active forest management reduces fuel loads. Thinning, prescribed burns, and harvest remove the accumulated debris that feeds catastrophic wildfire. A managed forest is less likely to burn catastrophically than an unmanaged one.
Natural Resources Canada’s own reporting confirms that changes in climate are increasing fire activity and “risking the carbon uptake potential of Canadian forests.” The implication is clear: if forests are not actively managed to reduce fire risk, their carbon storage function is threatened by the very fires that unmanaged conditions invite.
The World Resources Institute found that the 2023 Canadian wildfires released nearly 3 billion tonnes of CO₂—25 per cent more carbon than all primary tropical tree cover loss that year. This is not a marginal issue. Canada’s unmanaged forests have become one of the world’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Harvested wood products—Storing carbon in the built environment
When a tree is harvested and turned into lumber, the carbon it absorbed during its lifetime is not released. It is transferred to the built environment.
A typical Canadian timber-frame house contains approximately 28 tonnes of stored CO₂ equivalent in its wood framing and finishes. As long as the house stands, that carbon remains sequestered.
Engineered wood products—cross-laminated timber (CLT), glue-laminated timber (glulam), laminated veneer lumber (LVL)—are increasingly replacing steel and concrete in mid-rise and even tall building construction. Wood buildings have dramatically lower embodied carbon than concrete or steel equivalents.
Mass timber construction is one of the most effective climate strategies available. Every cubic metre of wood used in construction stores approximately one tonne of CO₂ and avoids the emissions that would have been produced by manufacturing the equivalent volume of concrete or steel.
BC is a global leader in mass timber technology. UBC’s Brock Commons (2017) was the world’s tallest mass timber building at completion. The province has amended building codes to allow mass timber construction up to 18 storeys. The Tall Wood Building Demonstration Initiative and the BC Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George showcase what is possible.
But the mass timber industry needs fibre. It needs a working forest economy that produces lumber. The same policies that are shuttering sawmills and reducing harvest are constraining the supply of the very material that represents one of Canada’s most promising climate solutions.
The alternative—A productive, climate-positive forest economy
The alternative to the current policy is not a return to unregulated old-growth clear-cutting. It is an active, science-based forest management regime that:
- Harvests decadent stands before they burn. Identify high-risk, fire-prone areas where accumulated fuel loads create catastrophic wildfire potential. Prioritize harvest in these areas, converting standing fuel into wood products and reducing fire risk.
- Replants aggressively. Ensure that every harvested hectare is replanted with fast-growing species suited to the site. Establish a rotation that maintains the forest as a perpetual carbon sink.
- Invests in fire-resilient forest design. Incorporate firebreaks, fuel management zones, and strategic thinning into forest management plans. Design the managed forest landscape to resist rather than feed catastrophic fire.
- Builds the mass timber supply chain. Connect the fibre from managed forests to the construction industry’s growing demand for engineered wood products. Store carbon in buildings rather than leaving it in fire-prone stands.
- Maintains the workforce. The skilled labour that manages forests, fights fires, and operates mills is the same workforce. When mills close and workers leave, fire management capacity declines. A productive forest economy is fire management infrastructure.
- Supports Indigenous forestry partnerships. Many First Nations hold forest tenures and operate forestry enterprises. Active forest management on Indigenous lands, with Indigenous direction, serves both economic development and land stewardship goals.
Reimagining B.C.’s approach to climate and forestry
British Columbia’s forest policy has been presented as a choice between the environment and the economy. In reality, it is a policy that damages both.
The harvest deferrals and mill closures have eliminated 15,000 jobs and $700 million in annual revenue. They have hollowed out the communities that once managed BC’s forests. And they have left millions of hectares of decadent, fire-prone forest standing—fuel waiting for a spark.
When those forests burn—as they did in 2023, 2024, and 2025—they release carbon on a scale that makes every other climate policy in the country irrelevant. Canada’s 2023 wildfire emissions alone exceeded the combined total of every industrial emissions reduction the country has ever achieved.
The solution is not less forestry. It is more forestry—done well, done sustainably, and done with the explicit goal of reducing Canada’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions: uncontrolled wildfire in unmanaged forests.
A well-managed, productive, job-creating forest economy is Canada’s most powerful climate tool. The current policy of locking that tool in a cabinet while the forests burn is not environmental protection. It is environmental negligence dressed in green.
Stewart Muir is the President and CEO of Resource Works Society.
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