Quinn Barber

Canada experienced a record-breaking wildfire season in 2023, and another exceptional wildfire season in 2024. This includes extensive peatland burning, with wildfires approximately twice as likely to occur in peatlands as in normal years. This represents an immediate risk to boreal communities, as well as a potential risk to the massive carbon stocks in northern peatlands. In this presentation I discuss some of the issues and advances in remote mapping of peatland wildfires. I show how we can use historical fires to estimate when peatlands may resist wildfire spread, and when fire weather is severe enough to breach what may otherwise be fire-resistant landscape. I also discuss the rising prevalence and importance of overwinter holdover fires in peatlands, which drove an early and extensive 2024 wildfire season in western Canada.

Yasaman Amini

Peatlands are increasingly vulnerable to drying due to climate change, driven by rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns. Monitoring soil moisture is essential for detecting drought patterns. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provide valuable insights into wetness trends. I will discuss findings that link prolonged drying in peatlands to an increased risk of fires, showing that soil moisture reductions are often detectable 6–18 months before fire events. I will also present the capabilities of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite for providing frequent, global-scale data on soil moisture. While SMAP has proven invaluable for large-scale monitoring, I will also discuss its challenges in peatlands and explore efforts to improve SMAP's performance for peatland soil moisture monitoring.

Nick Pontone

Peatland mapping has benefited from improvements in the availability, sensitivity, and resolution of satellite remote sensing in recent years. Multi-sensor machine learning classification has facilitated the high-resolution mapping and classification of peatlands, including subdivision by peatland type. C-band and L-band synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) plays a critical role in mapping of peatlands and other water features due to its sensitivity to biomass and moisture conditions. Here I will present a peatland subclass map for the Canadian boreal forest, developed from multi-sensor remote sensing and time series analysis. I will also show an analysis of peatland InSAR coherence for peatlands in the northern hemisphere, including a discussion on SAR interactions with soil hydrological and physical properties.

Stewart:  The wildfires, floods and hailstorm of the summer of 2024 shattered the record for any season of insured losses in Canadian history. With losses escalating rapidly in both Canada and the United States, insurers are adjusting property coverages to remain viable.  This presentation covers the changes we are now witnessing in both the Canadian and American property insurance markets, the future of home insurability and the measures that the property and casualty insurance industry is advocating governments prioritize should property remain insurable into the next decade.

Kovacs: Over a thirty day period this summer Canadian insurers  received more than $7 billion in damage claims from storms  in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and a wildfire in Jasper,  an unprecedented total. Direct damage from climate-related  events increased 20-fold over the past 40 years,  doubling every 7 or 8 years, then doubling again, and again.  Investments in proven resilience measures would significantly  reduce the expected future loss and damage.  The presentation will explore how Canadians can break this alarming trend of rising damage from severe weather.