Wildfire season is here and if the last few years are any indication, Canadians will spend the summer sorting through a firestorm of disinformation.
People searching for good information in times of crisis are up against a slew of broken systems. Social media algorithms promote misinformation and disinformation and bury official sources. Governments at different levels struggle to coordinate information release as quickly as rumours spread. Not every community has local news and there are fewer reporters and more news deserts.
Imperfect information systems and the inherent chaos of a crisis allow well-intentioned but false information to spread, like people making false statements and observations about fire behaviour and what buildings have been destroyed.
People’s thirst for information during a crisis creates an information vacuum, and right-wing actors and groups are increasingly filling the empty space with conspiracies about arson, government control and environmental terrorism, as previously reported by Canada’s National Observer.
Some bad information is easier to spot, like baseless claims that wildfires are caused by arson carried out by environmentalists and government actors, or even space lasers.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith fed the flames of disinformation last summer after the town of Jasper was largely destroyed by wildfires. Smith told talk show host Ryan Jespersen the province would bring in arson investigators when he asked about the role climate change played in the 2024 wildfire season. Climate change, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, is causing higher temperatures and drier conditions, which exacerbate the frequency and severity of wildfires.
Maxime Bernier, the far-right People’s Party of Canada leader, went even further during 2023’s record wildfire year, when he said it outright: “I bet a good portion of the wildfires raging across the country were started by green terrorists who want to give their climate change campaign a little boost.”
Practical tips
Sorting through information on social media is no easy task, especially when politicians are participating in the disinformation, but there are some actions we can take to identify or at least remain skeptical about bad information.
People should ask themselves, “Does this feel right? Is this coming from the right place? Does this seem pretty sensational?” said Kevin Skrepnek, manager of community and emergency services at the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and BC Wildfire's former head information officer.
“Is this a screenshot of something, or is this an actual link to something?”
Sometimes, old photos are circulated and made to appear recent, so it’s important to think critically about the account or individual that posted an image, what their claims are and whether it’s possible to verify the source of the image. One way to get more information about an image is to do a reverse image search. Sometimes, a simple internet search of the topic at hand combined with the words “fact check” will reveal whether someone has already verified or debunked the information you’re unsure about.
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security also recommends checking the spelling of website domains and social media handles, keeping an eye out for small typos that are used to make a site or social media account look like it belongs to an official or trusted organization.
When conspiracies impact fire response
The most outlandish, viral conspiracies may appear to be confined to the online sphere, but this disinformation can and does have serious impacts on the ground. In 2023, the BC Wildfire service and police were confronted by a so-called “Convoy of Truth and Freedom,” attempting to gain access to a roadblock while authorities tried to evacuate people and fight the fires in North Shuswap.
The agencies responding to fires are “focused on pretty meat and potatoes stuff,” like trying to keep people safe, Skrepnek said — spending effort addressing “Looney Tunes-level” theories makes it harder to get important information out.
Skrepnek emphasized that some people, especially in his rural region, ignore evacuation orders and stay behind to tend to their livestock and livelihoods and he can’t fault them for that. However, he said there is a much smaller — though growing — number of people driven by disinformation or distrust of government who resist wildfire evacuation orders on that basis.
He said there were issues during the 2021 White Rock Lake fire, when people ignored an evacuation order or sneaked back in because, in their minds, the wildfire service either wasn't there or wasn’t doing enough to defend the remaining properties.
“That created a whole issue where now you've got civilians running around within an evacuation order area trying to fight the fire themselves, getting in the way of the wildfire service in some situations,” Skrepnek said.
Getting the right information is key and Skrepnek recommends identifying all the official information channels and bookmarking them so you know where to find updates when a crisis hits.
“If your local government or your First Nation or whatever it is, has a subscription-based alerting system, subscribe to that and know that that's always going to be the right info because it's coming direct from them,” he said.
Skrepnek acknowledged this answer won’t be satisfactory for some people, and government communications won’t always be perfect, “but that is going to be the best information that you can get.”
Relying on information that has been verified by the press or various levels of government is all well and good, but for many remote, rural and Indigenous communities the reality is a lot of information — good and bad — circulates on Facebook pages.
When getting info from social media is the only option
People in remote First Nations communities primarily get their information from social media, said Amy Cardinal Christianson, an Indigenous fire specialist and co-author of two books, one of which is on First Nation wildfire evacuations.
Some nations are doing a great job of using Facebook and YouTube livestreams for chiefs to give timely, accurate updates to the community, Christianson said.
“But lots of times, misinformation is being shared by us, right? By community members who are very concerned and want an answer for a situation, so they see something and immediately post it,” Christianson said. Skrepenk said one citizen-led Facebook group in his region did a good job using a Facebook page to amplify official wildfire information, but said this usually isn’t the case, and people often end up sharing unverified information and causing confusion.
Many people have good intentions but still contribute to the spread of inaccurate information, Christianson said.
“In the past, what we've seen is people will just post like, ‘I heard that so and so's house burned,’ or ‘this burned,’ or ‘that burned,’ or ‘the fire is here now,’ or ‘the fire jumped the river,’ and people immediately just get very upset about that.”
Christianson said a good rule of thumb is not to share anything on Facebook or social media if it’s not from an official source or you haven't been able to verify it because things can get “wildly” out of control.
However, “official” sources might look different for remote communities, she added.
“Usually, there's a contingent of folks in every Indigenous nation that gets evacuated who stay behind, and a lot of that is to do like firefighting or infrastructure protection, to feed dogs or animals that are left behind in the community,” she said. “Those people are often incredibly reliable sources of information for the community.”
Critically, these people on the ground are able to dispel rumours and misinformation by confirming what structures have and haven’t been affected or answering other questions, according to Christianson’s work studying the 2011 evacuation of Whitefish Lake First Nation in Alberta.
In this case, it's not always as simple as checking whether the government or firefighting agency has corroborated a report or claim because it's coming from individuals.
But Christianson said there are still ways to help assess the reliability of the source, like asking whether they actually have a responsibility or role in the fire event and response. This can help indicate whether someone is a trustworthy source, she said.
Christianson said most people can weed through the mess of online conspiracies blaming government arson and space lasers, but it does start to create a lack of trust, not just in institutions, but in each other.
Times of crisis and big events like wildfires can unite communities, she said.
“People forget about differences that they might have and other things, because you're trying to achieve a common goal together, but the second you start throwing in all this disinformation about arson and who's starting fires and other things like that, it just really complicates the situation.”
