Overview
- The peer‑reviewed paper published July 27, 2026 estimates about 76% of carbon released in Canada’s record 2023 wildfires came from belowground peat and soil rather than aboveground vegetation.
- Researchers report the 2023 season burned roughly 15.1 million hectares and released about 554 million tonnes of carbon, an amount the study compares to roughly three times Canada’s annual reported CO2 emissions.
- Peatlands alone accounted for about one‑third of the wildfire carbon, with Canada holding roughly 20% of the world’s soil organic carbon and the Hudson Bay Lowlands storing an estimated 30 billion tonnes.
- The team used a machine‑learning model trained on 20 years of NASA field data largely from Alaska and Western Canada and warn their approach relies on indirect moisture and fire indicators and has limited coverage in Central and Eastern Canada.
- The new findings arrive as a severe 2026 fire season threatens peat‑rich areas in Ontario and the Hudson Bay Lowlands, prompting calls for more ground measurements and stoking cross‑border political criticism over smoke and management.