Canadian Red Cross 2025 wildfire response largest operation in recent history

As wildfires continue to burn across Canada, the Canadian Red Cross has announced that its response operation this year is the largest in the organization’s history.

The scale and complexity has even surpassed their work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the air in the Hamilton area is pretty clear, there are still currently 592 active fires burning throughout the country, including three new ones Friday.

The majority of them are in the west, with the highest number of fires in Manitoba, which has 149.

“This is currently the second most severe wildfire season on record here in Canada, followed by 2023, which was Canada’s worst one on record,” said Alexandria Jones with the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC).

While this may not be the worst wildfire season in Canada, it has impacted more communities and people.

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That is according to the Canadian Red Cross, who said this year’s response is their largest in recent history.

“An element we don’t talk about is how the people that are impacted,” said Conrad Sauvé, the president and CEO of the Canadian Red Cross, “so you can have a big fire season that doesn’t impact a lot of people, or you can have a small fire season that happens to impact a lot of communities.”

Their response this year includes operating a mega-congregate shelter with capacity for more than 3,000 people, deploying 1,200 personnel, registering 52,000 people, securing 815 flights for 10,000 people, and securing 200,000 hotel nights.

“It’s extremely complex as well, because it’s also been a season of fire,” said Sauvé. “So in some cases, some communities have evacuated two or three times and have returned.”

“We’ve been very busy, because we’ve been put on constant standby — often these are remote communities, so you have to fly in and get people,” said Sauvé.

According to the Manitoba Wildfire Service’s latest update, there is low fire danger in the majority of the province, and the status of five fires was changed from “out of control” to “being held.”

Manitoba has been under a provincial state of emergency, which was scheduled to come to an end Friday.

It was extended due to a wildfire season that is now the worst on record in the past 30 years.

The CIFFC said the biggest resource request they’ve gotten is always for personnel.

“Fire crews, overhead personnel, specialist pilots et cetera, followed by equipment,” said Jones.

As for the fires in northern Ontario, there are a few in the Sudbury area, but many appear to be under control.

The Red Cross added that they needed more support on the community, provincial, and federal level in order to plan ahead and for these events.

When it comes to planning, one issue they anticipate running into next year is the fact that there may be less hotel space available, because Canada is hosting FIFA World Cup 26.

WATCH MORE: Provinces facing hundreds of wildfires in Canada’s 2nd-worst season on record