English: By late September 2023, the calendar suggested that Canada’s ferocious wildfire season should be near its end. However, intense smoke captured in clouds over the Arctic confirmed that wildfires continued to blacken Canadian forests despite the late date.

On September 20, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of rivers of smoke entrained in the clouds and swirling around Norway’s Svalbard Islands.

These snow-and-ice-covered islands sit halfway between Norway’s north coast and the North Pole, with the Arctic Ocean to the north, Greenland Sea in the west, and Barents Sea to the south. Widespread smoke tints many of the normally white clouds a dirty tan color across the entire region.

The wildfire season in the Northern Hemisphere typically begins in May and ends in October. By early May, several very large fires had broken out in Western Canada, with a second notable outbreak in Quebec following several weeks later. Wildfires have continued to burn across Canada, frequently releasing heavy smoke that darkened skies and dashed air quality not only locally, but also in the United States. Plumes have reached Europe and the Arctic several times this summer.

As of September 13, Canada’s National Wildland Fire Situation Report stated that there were 602 wildfires still burning across the country. There were 226 listed as uncontrolled, 84 were being held, 171 were controlled, and 122 were under modified response.

According to a press release on the 2023 Canadian wildfire season which was published September 13 on the Copernicus website, the “extent, persistence, and intensity of these wildfires have led to the total estimated emissions of carbon emissions for 2023 to be almost 410 megatonnes, the highest for Canada by a wide margin in the CAMS dataset. The previous record for annual carbon emissions was 2014, with 138 megatonnes of carbon.” They also explained that, as of that date, Canada wildfire emissions represent 27% of the total global wildfire carbon emissions for 2023.