in brief
- More than 900 wildfires are burning right across Canada, with more than 200 out of control.
- Donald Trump has berated Canada for not maintaining its forests.
US President Donald Trump has attacked Canada for wildfire smoke spreading across the United States and said he would add the "incalculable cost" of dealing with the pollution to existing tariffs on Canadian goods.
Heavy smoke from hundreds of Canadian fires enveloped large parts of the US, from the Midwest to the Northeast, this week, prompting warnings to residents to stay indoors.
Trump, who has a combative relationship with Prime Minister Mark Carney, said he would be calling the Canadian leader to find out what he planned to do about the "totally unacceptable" situation.
"We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests ... and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air," he said in a Truth Social post.
"This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying."
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Climate experts, however, say higher temperatures have led to drier forests and more wildfires in recent years. Canada has one of the world's largest forests.
"As our climate warms, we're seeing more conducive hot, dry, windy, more extreme weather, and we're going to see more fire," said Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia.
Shortly after taking office in 2025, Trump imposed tariffs on several key imports from Canada.
Carney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Carney said on Thursday the United States could do more to combat climate change that is leading to warmer and more extreme temperatures around the world.
The two men are likely to meet at the FIFA World Cup final in New Jersey on Monday.
Many blazes this year are in the giant province of Ontario and are concentrated in the remote and sparsely populated northwest, where the only mode of transport is plane.
So far, 27,830 square kilometres of forest have burned in Canada this year.
Thousands of people have been evacuated.
'Nothing remaining'
Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, also known as Collins First Nation, in northwestern Ontario was burned to the ground, forcing residents to evacuate by boat and seek shelter in Thunder Bay, Matthew Hoppe, the community's incident commander, told the Reuters news agency.
"There was nothing remaining. So as you can imagine, the membership is totally distraught, upset, overwhelmed, lost," Hoppe said.
Thunder Bay, a city of about 110,000 people on the northern shore of Lake Superior more than 1,300km northwest of Toronto, is at full capacity from sheltering wildfire evacuees from across northwestern Ontario, Mayor Ken Boshcoff said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Friday said the province would buy 11 new aircraft to help counter the fast-spreading wildfires and pushed back against US politicians who have criticised the campaign as inadequate.
The United States is also experiencing an above-average fire year, with nearly 15,000 square km burned to date in 2026, compared with a 10-year average of around 11,000 square km, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Rising global temperatures driven by greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels are making wildfire conditions more severe.
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