‘The new reality’? Canadian wildfires become the global face of unfolding ecological disaster

The orange haze that this country’s wildfires have cast upon New York’s Empire State Building and other world-famous landmarks. The haunting images of Canada’s flaming tinder leaving its mark on America have effectively captured the vast power of nature’s wrath, and have become the global face of an unfolding ecological and humanitarian disaster in this country. And residents of the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest, where wildfire smoke is a regular part of life, urged their eastern counterparts to get a grip. In Quebec, fires threatened more than half a dozen towns and Indigenous communities, resulting in the evacuation of more than 11,000 people. With files from Rob Ferguson and The Canadian PressAllan Woods is a Montreal-based staff reporter for the Star.