Summer may be over, but wildfire season is still going. Now is a good time to pause and look at how the wildfire story is being told, especially in Canada’s media.
This summer, Re.Climate worked with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and My Climate Plan on how to communicate more effectively about wildfires. We wanted to understand how the media were covering this issue. What is the main narrative, what are outlets missing, and what should communicators keep in mind for their media strategies for the rest of the season?
We did a mini analysis of Canadian media wildfire coverage in July to find out. Here are some of our findings.
Media Coverage High When Disaster Breaks, but Links To Climate Are Low
With a record number of wildfires in Northern Ontario, smoke blanketing parts of the province and the United States and Donald Trump threatening to slap more tariffs onto Canada as a result, it’s not surprising that wildfires were the hottest (no pun intended) topic in the national media in July. Across the national news outlets we reviewed, wildfires appeared in more than 3,600 stories.
However, if you look deeper into these stories, most of them don’t mention the cause of the more intense wildfires (climate change), and even more don’t connect the dots to its cause (the burning of fossil fuels). About half of Canadians don’t know this connection. Leaving it out of media coverage limits Canadians’ understanding of what causes climate change and how it creates conditions for more intense wildfires.
*For this analysis, we reviewed July wildfire coverage from a variety of national outlets, including CBC News Network, CTV News Channel, The Globe and Mail, National Post, Global National, and The Canadian Press. Syndicated stories were grouped together/measured as one hit. NOTE: This is an aggregate analysis of the national-media sample, not an assessment of any individual outlet. Findings reflect the overall sample, not individual outlet performance.
Some of the top national headlines about wildfires in July focused on the following:
- Air quality: Smoke from wildfires in Northern Ontario made its way south, causing Toronto to have the worst air quality in the world. Residents were told to stay inside to avoid the toxic air. There were 1,172 media mentions on this topic.
- Evacuations: Several communities in Northern Ontario, including First Nations communities, were evacuated because of the numerous, intense wildfires. The wildfires, evacuations, and emergency response generated 1,672 media mentions.
- Trump: The smoke from the wildfires travelled into the United States, causing an uproar from a number of conservative politicians, including Donald Trump. The national media mentioned this topic 1,079 times.
As these topics took up the most media bandwidth, fewer stories covered wildfires and climate change (170 stories), wildfires and public health (124 stories), and wildfires and the economy (289 stories). In other words, stories about what is behind these wildfires and what the long-term effects and consequences could be.
Wildfire Stories that Some Media Outlets Missed—and Can Still Cover—This Wildfire Season
It’s understandable that when wildfires are blazing, the media will focus mainly on the emergency itself. But that can push other topics to the back burner. When wildfire season starts to wind down, it’s a good time to revisit them.
These topics include the long-term health impacts of smoke exposure; how to protect vulnerable communities; what can be done to protect outdoor workers beyond masks and breaks (i.e., worker protections and employer responsibilities); and the connection between climate change and wildfires, along with prevention and solutions.
Our media plays an important role in helping the public make sense of the wildfires they see and experience and their impacts. Wildfire season is an annual event in Canada. Our media needs to examine the long-term and broader impacts of wildfires and what can be done to prevent them (i.e., stop burning fossil fuels).
What Can Communicators Do?
Wildfires burn in Canada well into October, so there’s still time to help shape the narrative about them. Here are some actions climate communicators can take:
- Connect climate change directly to fossil fuels. Don’t just say “climate change” in your communications. Use interview quotes, op-eds, letters to the editor and social media posts to explain the full link – fossil fuel emissions drive climate change, which makes wildfires worse. See Re.Climate’s wildfire tip sheet for some messaging tips.
- Give spokespeople a simple bridge sentence for interviews. Help them connect wildfires directly to climate change and fossil fuels in a single rehearsed line.
- Be proactive with spokespeople and media. If you have people in your network who can speak about wildfires, climate change, health or preparedness, put them forward to the media when relevant stories emerge. And if you are a spokesperson, don’t wait for reporters to call. Reach out proactively with timely insights, local expertise or a story idea. The more visible and available you are, the more opportunities you have to bring climate into the wildfire conversation.
- Reach out to the ombudsperson or write a letter to the editor. Most national/large media outlets have a dedicated ombudsperson who listens to their audience’s concerns. Writing a letter to the editor is another way to share your thoughts. Reach out and ask the outlet to connect climate change, fossil fuels and wildfires in its reporting. Explain why this is so important.
- Create a quick-response plan for smoky days. Smoke-filled days can still occur this year. And bad air quality always makes local news. Have spokespeople and pre-written quotes ready for these alerts to connect the smoke directly to climate change.
- Focus heavily on local stories and voices. Connect local media with trusted, local voices. Adapt your messaging to focus on the specific climate impacts happening right in their communities.
- Speak to shared, everyday values. Focus on what matters most to people: protecting family, health and community. Connect climate risks directly to safety, fairness and preparedness.
- Shift focus as media coverage moves into the post-emergency phase. As active fire coverage ends, news shifts to sensemaking. Use this window to highlight systemic issues and climate impacts. Refer to the coverage gaps earlier in this blog for ideas.
Additional note: If you plan to involve first responders or people directly affected, use trauma-informed storytelling techniques to ensure their experiences are shared with care and respect, without causing further harm. For an example of this approach, see the Climate Disaster Project’s trauma-informed storytelling method. Based at the University of Victoria, the project works with people affected by climate disasters to share their stories while giving them a say in how those stories are told.
We Can Change the Wildfire Story
When a wildfire starts, Canadians turn to the media for the information they need. As climate communicators, we can help ensure they get the full story by working with media outlets in our communities to make the connection between climate change and wildfires clear. In doing so, we can help shift the narrative and build Canadians’ understanding of why wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe, and what we can do to reduce the risks.
Are you looking for more information about how to communicate about wildfires? See Re.Climate’s wildfire tip sheet.
Jennifer Mayville is Re.Climate’s Strategic Services Director
