Each week during the wildfire season, Dr. Mike Flannigan will share a five- to 10-day fire weather outlook for Canada. This is a first step in developing a national early warning system for wildfire in Canada. The fire weather outlook will be posted every Tuesday.
Mike Flannigan is the scientific director of the Institute for Wildfire Science, Adaptation, and Resiliency as well as the BC Innovation Research Chair in Predictive Services, Emergency Management and Fire Science at Thompson Rivers University.
View bioWeekly outlook | May 16-21, 2026 Issued May 12, 2026
All information provided below is reported at the time of publication and may not reflect more recent updates.
Current fire situation
Relatively quiet start to the 2026 Fire Season except for BC and Alberta.
The snow is finally melting over large areas of our central and northern forests. Expect to see increasing fire starts over large regions of Canada as the fuels(vegetation) becomes more receptive fire starts. Most of these fires will be human-caused but the lightning season has started and we will see more lightning-caused fire starts.
On a positive note, the drought situation is improving with many areas no longer abnormally dry or in drought. The drought situation is shown in figure 1 with only parts of BC, NWT, NB, NS and a region around the QC and Labrador border in drought.
Most of the current fires are BC and Alberta and most of the fires are under control or being held. The current number of fires and area burned in Canada are below (number of fires) or well below (area burned) compared to the recent 10-year average. Even in BC and AB area burned numbers are well below the 10-year average. (CIFFC | Situation Report May 11, 2026)
Map showing location and status of fires in Canada as of May 12th.
ciffc.ca
Forecasted weather May 16-21
The upper atmosphere pattern is highly variable during the forecast period. The upper atmosphere dynamics largely drive the weather (fire weather) that we see at the surface. The lack of blocking ridges suggests that we will not see elevated or extreme fire weather.
Below are the weekly temperature anomalies (May 18-25) as well as the 5-day precipitation totals for May 16-21, 2026. Weekly temperatures are below normal for much of central Canada, but we see much of western Canada has little or no precipitation during the forecast period.
ECMWF weekly temperature anomaly May 16-21, 2026
ECMWF | Charts
The forecasted precipitation 5-day precipitation for May 16-21, 2026
ECMWF | Models
Lightning and the potential for lightning-caused fires May 16-21
Fairly light lightning activity is expected during the May 16 -21 forecast period. However, there is some lightning activity especially in the west and southern Ontario and Quebec. Some lightning activity is possible in the Yukon and Northwest Territories near the end of the forecast period.
Lightning forecast for May 16 | Meteologix.com
We often use the Duff Moisture Code (DMC) to determine the potential of a lightning-caused fire start. Often lightning hits a tree and travels down the tree and starts a fire in the organic material at the base of the tree. The higher the DMC the drier the fuel and the more likely you will have a lightning-caused fire. Figure z below shows the DMC for Saturday May 16 and you can see much of BC and Alberta have high DMC values so this is where I would expect to see the majority of the fire starts.
If you would like to read about the relationship between fire and the DMC in Canada – check out the recent paper by Mike Wotton and Melanie Wheatley.
Duff Moisture Code for 16 May 2026.
CWFIS static map viewer
Fire weather outlook for May 16-21
Another quiet 5-day period over much of Canada relative to the 10-year average for this time. Some conducive fire weather in BC, AB, southern ON, southern QC, NB and NS. Some conducive fire weather for southern NWT near the end of the forecast period.
A look ahead – June 2026
The C3S multi-model forecast for June was just released and it looks like June will be hotter than usual and that precipitation will be normal to below normal across Canada. These conditions are conducive to increased fire activity.
2 m Temperature for June 2026.
Charts | Copernicus
Precipitation for June 2026.
Charts | Copernicus
Weekly forecast history
Questions?We have the answers
Questions, including media requests for Mike Flannigan, can be emailed to wildfire@tru.ca.
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