The effects of climate change have increased the risk of forest fires to record-setting numbers within the last decade.  

As a result, Health Canada is collaborating with CIER on a multi-year project to exchange knowledge, identify knowledge gaps, and discover information needs related to wildfire and wood-burning smoke. 

After gathering information and hearing from those impacted by wildfire smoke from a series of workshops held in 2022 and 2023, the project team has developed the Wildfire Smoke Portal. This portal is a tool for sharing information, and a place to share first-hand experiences from those impacted by wildfire smoke, as well as indoor smoke produced from wood-burning stoves.  

The portal offers information on wildfire smoke tracking, and it also includes the Indigenous Educational Toolkit for Understanding Air Quality & the Impacts on Health and Well-Being, a guide for community health representatives to begin or maintain a dialogue on the effects of air quality. 

The upcoming phase of this project includes translating the hosted stories on the portal into 10 Indigenous languages. Additionally, the Air Quality Health Index will be translated into 11 Indigenous languages. This translation process began during spring 2023 and will involve focus groups to help validate the translations with Indigenous language speakers.  

If you or someone you know would like to share your story about wildfire smoke or wood-burning smoke, please contact Jason at [email protected].