Wildfires are not a seasonal crisis. They are a structural one.
In recent years, Canada has seen record-breaking wildfire seasons. Millions of hectares have burned, hundreds of communities have been forced to evacuate, and damages total in the billions. The failures are systemic, and the risks are rising.
“Canada should be leading and developing the wildfire tech solutions that we need here at home, and that the world needs.”
Sarah Goodman,
NorthX Climate Tech
The BetaKit Guide: Wildfire examines the role of technology in addressing this global challenge, as part of a wider response that requires Indigenous knowledge, policy shifts, and capital investment.
“Canada should be leading and developing the wildfire tech solutions that we need here at home, and that the world needs,” said Sarah Goodman, President and CEO of NorthX Climate Tech (formerly known as the BC Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy), presenting partner of the BetaKit Guide: Wildfire.
In Canada, wildfire tech startups are outfitting power grids with predictive sensors, coordinating autonomous drone fleets, and turning reforestation into precision science.
But the path to scale for these startups is long. Procurement cycles are seasonal and slow. Public agencies are stretched thin, and many buyers don’t have a budget line for experimentation.
Alongside the private sector, governments are cutting firebreaks into forests, launching satellites to track fire behaviour, and setting up wildfire education programs rooted in advanced fire science. Insurance providers, facing mounting losses, are pivoting from payouts to prevention by building hazard models and working with communities to lower exposure before disaster hits.
Indigenous communities are reviving cultural burning practices that were suppressed by colonial fire laws. In some regions, those burns are being paired with remote sensing, GIS mapping, and wildfire response planning. Data ownership, training, and long-term benefits remain central to how these collaborations move forward.
There is no single solution to the global wildfire crisis. But across Canada, new systems and tools are taking shape.
The BetaKit Guide: Wildfire is a dispatch from that frontier.