Leonard Mamakeesic says he learned a lot during this year's wildfire season after his community was threatened by Ontario's largest wildfire on record.
The chief of Deer Lake First Nation, a remote Oji-Cree community about 600 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay, said his people stepped up to help one another during this summer's evacuation, which saw more than 800 members flown to Toronto.
“The weeks dragged on and on, and the months dragged on and started getting a little rough. People wanted to be home,” Mamakeesic said. “Toronto is a concrete jungle for people” from the community.
The province’s wildfire season officially ended on Friday — a total of 643 wildfires were reported between April and October.
Nearly 600,000 hectares — about 6,000 square kilometres — of land burned, compared to 480 fires and nearly 90,000 hectares, or 900 square kilometres, burned the year before. Ontario’s 10-year average is 712 fires and about 2,100 square kilometres burned.
Nationally, data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre in August indicates Canada's 2025 wildfire season was the second worst on record.
Northwestern Ontario bore the brunt of wildfire activity in the province, with 11 communities facing restrictions or evacuations. Thousands of people from remote First Nations were flown to communities in southern Ontario as well as Winnipeg.
The region’s largest wildfire, Red Lake 12, peaked at more than 196,000 hectares, becoming Ontario’s largest wildfire on record and prompting evacuations in Deer Lake and Sandy Lake First Nations.
Sandy Lake saw one of the most notable evacuations, where Red Lake 12 triggered a response from the Canadian Armed Forces.
“Fires near human settlements require a really robust response to both fight the fire and to assist the communities in managing an emergency, so how fires affect people is perhaps a better measure of a fire season's severity,” said Chris Marchand, a Dryden-based fire information officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources' Aviation Forest Fire and Emergency Services.
Union calls for better wages
The province says it’s hiring 68 permanent firefighting and support staff positions next year. It also plans to spend more than $500 million on six new De Havilland, DHC-515 waterbombers, but those aren’t expected to arrive until the early 2030s.
“We need pilots and maintenance crews to be able to support those aircraft, so we're actively recruiting, we're looking at ways that we can make compensation as competitive as possible, and working with our partners and government to make that happen,” Ontario Minister of Natural Resources Mike Harris told CBC News in an interview.
The province received additional support from British Columbia and Wisconsin fire crews, as well as aircraft and equipment from Quebec, Alberta and New Brunswick.
In turn, Ontario sent more than 400 fire personnel and six aircraft to British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, as well as Minnesota, according to the ministry.
Lack of personnel was a key concern in northwestern Ontario this season. There were reports of waterbombers being grounded because there weren’t enough pilots to operate them.
But a statement emailed to CBC from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) said its members “were forced to adapt with the resources they had available while being short over 45 ground crews, equaling a minimum of 135 positions, and an aerial wildfire support that was compromised due to pilot and equipment shortages.”
The union is calling for more competitive wages in order to contend with the rising cost of living.
For Mamakeesic's part, he said he's happy with the province's response to Red Lake 12, considering how close the fire came to his community — about 30 metres from his band office at one point — and no structures were lost.
‘The value of early preparedness’
This year’s season got off to an early start in mid-May, Marchand explained, demonstrating "how a few weeks of dry weather combined with high winds and low humidity can produce that extreme fire behaviour in forests that haven't greened up yet.”
The wildfires prompted prolonged air-quality statements and warnings across the region due to smoke, which at times were combined with heat warnings.
Half a dozen communities in the region also faced days-long power outages after wildfires damaged a series of hydro poles, resulting in food spoilage, overheating in homes, and shortages of food, fuel and other essential supplies.
While many First Nations saw evacuees divided up among host communities, Mamakeesic said he fought to keep his people together. About five years ago, he said, evacuees from Deer Lake were split up across Cornwall, Cochrane and Thunder Bay, which made it hard to keep track of everyone and make sure their needs were met.
“Keep your community and your leaders in one place,” Mamakeesic said. “I think that's the best thing to do.”
Looking to next season, Mamakeesic hopes to learn more about protection measures such as firebreaks in forests, which are meant to slow or stop the spread of fires.
As for Marchand, he said although Ontario’s outdoor burning regulations have been lifted for the season, it’s important to keep educating people about fire prevention.
“The 2025 wildland fire season really showed the value of early preparedness when spring fire conditions present as they did this past May,” he said.
“We know from years such as this one how fast the fire situation can escalate, and the need to be vigilant and fully operational at that early stage of the season.”