Canada’s 2023 wildfires burned huge chunks of forest, spewing far more heat-trapping gas than planes

AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Researchers now calculate that catastrophic Canadian warming-fueled wildfires last year pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than India did by burning fossil fuels and set ablaze an area of forest larger than the state of West Virginia. Scientists at the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland calculated how devastating the impacts of the months-long fires in Canada in 2023 that sullied the air around large parts of the globe. They figure it put 3.28 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air. They say nearly 30,000 square miles of forest burned.