North America’s boreal forests have been burning a lot, probably more and more over the past 60 years. Yet the long-term trend indicates that they are burning less than they were 150 years ago.

In North American boreal forests, several million hectares can go up in smoke in a single year. On the other hand, these forest fires can seem almost negligible for several consecutive years. During the past 60 years, the area annually affected by forest fires has increased, presumably because of climate change. Or at least that’s part of the explanation.

However, to better understand the long-term trends it is important to take a step back. This is the work our team of forest and fire ecology specialists recently carried out.

The results of our research contradict the common wisdom about North American boreal forests — that they burned more in the past than they do today. But before we go into more detail about this, we feel it’s important to provide some background and context.