2023 Canada Wildfire History
Canada's 2023 wildfire season was unprecedented in the modern national record. Natural Resources Canada's latest State of Canada's Forests series reports 6,837 fires and 17,606,547 hectares burned for 2023. Other federal products, including the National Burned Area Composite, publish a different forest-area estimate because they use a different method and scope; FireRadar does not mix those figures into one total.
National fire-management agency series
National Forestry Database / CWFIS series as published by NRCan
Largest area burned in the national series
What stands out about 2023
Fire activity was widespread across Canada rather than concentrated in one region.
The season produced sustained smoke impacts and evacuations across multiple provinces and territories.
FireRadar keeps the management-agency annual series separate from satellite-derived burned-area products so unlike metrics are not presented as interchangeable.
Official source
Natural Resources Canada — State of Canada's Forests. Official national annual fire count and area-burned series through 2024.
Review source material →What this page does not claim
This is not a reconstructed live map of every moment in 2023, not proof of a fire’s status on a particular day, and not a substitute for agency incident archives. FireRadar’s interactive retained-history product begins with its own observation window and remains clearly separate.
Read FireRadar archive boundaries →Compare nearby seasons
Province-level official history
For 2023, FireRadar has source-reviewed historical pages for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Each page preserves the reporting language and limitations of its provincial authority.