A University of Alberta professor says climate change didn't directly cause the major wildfires and grassfires that have scorched Alberta, B-C and Saskatchewan this year.
But Mike Flannigan says warmer temperatures and reduced precipitation certainly contributed to the severity of the fires, and he expects the worsening fire trend to continue.
British Columbia recorded its worst-ever fire season with more than 12-thousand square kilometres of timber, bush and grassland burned, and some 45-thousand people forced from their homes.
Last month Waterton Lakes National Park had to be evacuated after lightning started a fire that spread across the B-C border into the park in southwestern Alberta.
And this past week wind-whipped wildfires wreaked havoc on an area stretching from the Crowsnest Pass in southwestern Alberta all the way into southwestern Saskatchewan.
An insurance industry executive, meantime, is also predicting the extreme fire season witnessed this year will be repeated in the near future.
Bill Adams, western vice-president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, notes Alberta has been especially hard hit by natural disasters over the past eight years, and he believes climate change has been a key factor.