Canada's Wildfires Affect Our Health

This past summer, Canada had a record breaking wildfire season. More than 18 million hectares of forest burned this summer in Canada. 

Local 514 spoke with Stephane Bilodeau, an adjunct professor in the Department of Bioengineering at McGill University about Canada's wildfire season. 

"Wild fires are there and will come back next year," he said. "It might not be as bad but it's increasing."

Bilodeau said these wildfires are being caused by manmade climate change. He said that forest fires are a natural process in our environment but the current rate of these fires are not natural. At this speed, Bilodeau said Canada's forests don't have chance to regenerate.

When asked about carbon neutrality being used to balance emissions to prevent further climate change, Bilodeau said that we're no longer at a time to only compensate, but we need to both reduce emissions and compensate.

"If we want to reduce [greenhouse gas emissions] as soon as possible, we must reduce fossil fuels in a bigger way," he said. Our economy is too tied to fossil fuels, he added.

Bilodeau said forest fires don't only effect our planet, but they effect our health.

He said they can cause asthma, other respiratory diseases and non-respiratory diseases. As a result of forest fires, he says that hospitalizations have increased. 

A healthy air quality index (AQI) is a rate of less than 100. Bilodeau says this summer Montreal reached rates beyond 400, while Laval reached rates 130 to 150.  

Montreal has been increasing the planting of trees to help address climate change. Bilodeau says this will help air quality but the pollution needs to be addressed at the source to provide clean air and prevent hospitalizations.