Canada Seasonal Wildfire Outlook
Seasonal wildfire outlooks answer a different question from FireRadar's live incident map and daily Fire Weather Index. Natural Resources Canada's CWFIS Seasonal Forecast 2.0 looks weeks to months ahead at expected fire-weather severity, how conditions compare with local normal, forecast confidence, and the potential for unusually severe fire-weather days.
Updated monthly on the first business day after the 6th from April through September.
FireRadar does not invent an interim seasonal value between official CWFIS updates. Check the source map for the currently published forecast month and model products.
How to read the seasonal forecast
Forecast Severity Rating
A longer-range estimate of potential seasonal fire-weather severity. Similar values can still produce different real-world fire outcomes.
Severity Anomaly
Shows how forecast severity compares with what is typical for that location and time of year.
Probabilistic Forecast
Communicates confidence and agreement across the forecast ensemble rather than pretending one deterministic outcome is certain.
95th-percentile fire-weather days
Highlights periods when forecast Fire Weather Index may be unusually high relative to the local climate. It does not capture every day on which extreme fire behaviour could occur.
What the outlook means for Canada
Canada's fire season does not develop uniformly. Snowmelt, spring drying, drought, precipitation, temperature, fuels, lightning, human ignitions, local wind, and topography can produce very different outcomes even where the seasonal fire-weather signal is similar. Use the seasonal outlook as one line of evidence, then move to FireRadar's live incidents and daily fire-danger products as the date approaches.