In a province where 97% of wildfires are human-caused, prevention isn’t optional

Fred DeLeroy

A number of years ago, I helped my aunt and uncle evacuate their rural Nova Scotia home as a forest fire crept dangerously close. We filled the back of the car with family photos and a few valuables, then drove to our place near the ocean, praying the wind would turn.

We were lucky. Many others weren’t.

And here we are again. Right now we’re going through a dangerously extreme drought. Some parts of the province haven’t had rain since June. That’s not a typo – June. So when the provincial government announced a temporary ban on travelling in the woods due to extreme fire risk, I didn’t complain. I exhaled.

Still, the pushback came fast – from outside the Maritimes. Folks took to social media, questioning the need for such restrictions and suggesting what Nova Scotia really needed was better forest management. Some saw it as an overreaction. Others called it government overreach. And more than a few laughed it off.

Here’s the problem: Nova Scotia is built differently than the rest of the country.

Our province is 70% privately owned. We have far less Crown land – just 29%, compared to 94% in BC or 92% in Quebec. That matters. Most Nova Scotians don’t live near the woods. We live in them. Small communities are stitched right into forested areas, and we don’t have the same buffers or remote zones that larger provinces take for granted.

Some have suggested better buffer zones between forests and homes. But in a province this small, that’s not realistic. If we tried to replicate BC’s or Alberta’s fire breaks, we’d have to carve out so much that we’d lose most of our forests. The forest here isn’t “out there” beyond the edge of town. Growing up in Antigonish County, I didn’t have a back lawn – I had a forest, just metres from my house.

This is why the current fire ban goes beyond campfires and includes walking or hiking through high-risk areas. It’s not about punishing hikers. It’s about sending a signal: This is serious. Please stay out of the woods until we get rain.

People might wonder how something as innocent as a walk in the woods could start a wildfire. The truth is, it’s not the walking – it’s what comes with it. A hot muffler from a dirt bike or ATV pulling off into brush, a discarded glass bottle, or a carelessly tossed cigarette – in the wrong conditions, any of these can be enough to spark ignition. When the forest is bone-dry, the margin for error disappears.

And despite the alarm some have raised, this isn’t a sweeping lockdown. Private landowners can still use their own property. You can still go to the beach. You can still camp in designated campgrounds. You can still fish – just not by bushwhacking through the forest to get there.

The maximum fine of $25,000 isn’t the starting point – it’s a deterrent. And we all hope it works.

Let’s not forget – people pushed back on seatbelt laws and drinking-and-driving restrictions too. At the time, some saw them as government overreach. Today, we see them for what they are: basic, life-saving rules. This temporary fire ban is no different. It’s not about punishing people for walking in the woods – it’s about keeping a preventable disaster from unfolding in real time.

When conditions are this dry, even low-risk activity becomes high-stakes.

And this isn’t about lightning. In Nova Scotia, 97% of wildfires are human-caused. The latest data from Natural Resources Nova Scotia lists the top sources: campfires, debris burning, arson, equipment sparks, and vehicle exhausts. Lightning accounted for just 14 of 176 wildfires – and here, lightning usually comes with heavy rain, not the “dry lightning” that fuels massive fires out west. Our risk isn’t theoretical. It starts with us.

And we take that risk seriously because we remember 2023. That year, Nova Scotia experienced its worst wildfire season in recorded history. Thousands of people were forced from their homes. Entire communities were left shaken and scarred. You don’t go through something like that and not learn lessons.

Yes, good forest management matters. I’ve said that before – and loudly. But when you’re facing extreme conditions, it’s too late for policy papers. Sometimes, the best management decision is to keep people out of harm’s way.

And for those claiming this is some new or post-COVID overreach, let’s be clear: Nova Scotia has restricted access to the woods due to fire risk three times in the past decade, under different governments. The first ban was actually back in 2001 under then-premier John Hamm. Different governments, different eras, same logic. Everyone I’ve spoken to in Nova Scotia – rural, urban, left, right – understands why. They support it because they’ve seen, up close, what these fires can do.

What all of this really reveals is something deeper: Canadians don’t always understand one another as well as we think. Too many from outside the Maritimes picture Nova Scotia as a postcard coastline, not a province where many communities are literally in the forest. When they look at this ban through an outsider’s lens, they apply the wrong frame to a very different landscape. What might seem like an overreaction elsewhere is a targeted, proven response here – because in Nova Scotia, the forest is home, and when it burns, so do our communities.

And that’s why this ban makes sense.

Fred DeLorey is seasoned political strategist & influential writer. He writes insightful analysis on politics, policy & culture.