From Northern Ontario First Nations to downtown Toronto to British Columbia, Canadians are facing down the impacts of a summer wildfire season in full swing.

In Northwestern Ontario, wildfires have devastated several communities, forcing widespread evacuations and destroying homes and buildings in one First Nation as harrowing wildfire videos and images emerge on social media, The Canadian Press reports.

The fires have prompted evacuation orders for several communities, including Lac La Croix First Nation, Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, Whitesand First Nation, Gull Bay First Nation, Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation, and Armstrong.

Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige said a fast-moving wildfire has advanced toward Namaygoosisagagun, also known as Collins First Nation. The fire has caused extensive damage and destruction to homes and buildings, Debassige said in a statement.

She said community members were forced to flee without the support of emergency services but all have been accounted for based on the information available as of Wednesday morning.

“The Anishinabek Nation will be dedicating resources to support Namaygoosisagagun First Nation through this devastating natural disaster in whatever areas possible, including boots-on-the-ground, accommodation coordination, and liaising with government,” she said.

“It is in these moments of crisis that we need to come together to support one another.”

Namaygoosisagagun Helen Paavola said some people fled on boats as trees next to their homes caught fire. The community has declared a state of emergency and it’s seeking support from both the provincial and federal governments.

“Our primary focus is to take care of our community members as many of our people ran out of their houses with only the clothes on their back,” Paavola said.

The community is located about 210 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, and it’s not accessible by road.

In the town of Armstrong, west of Namaygoosisagagun, a CN Rail crew had to be evacuated after their train was surrounded by fire.

A video taken from inside the locomotive and shared widely on various social media platforms shows orange-red flames engulfing trees on both sides of the tracks where the train had stopped.

Sol Mamakwa, an NDP member of provincial parliament who represents the northern Ontario riding of Kiiwetinoong, also shared it on social media.

“I’m just glad that the CN workers are safe after this traumatizing experience that they had,” he told CP in an interview from Thunder Bay.

“I think the video really highlights the reality that people are facing on the ground. For many people, this feels far away, but it’s northern Ontario, northwestern Ontario, and it’s all too real.”

CN Rail said in a statement Wednesday that the train crew was safely evacuated from the area.

In Toronto, smoke from the northern wildfires turned the skyline an eerie shade of orange Wednesday as air quality warnings across southern parts of the province raised health concerns and prompted outdoor event cancellations, CP says.

Environment Canada’s air quality warnings stretched from Thunder Bay to Kingston and down to London.

The smoke plumes have stretched across the U.S.-Canada border, prompting health warnings in New York state.

Jean-Philippe Bégin, an Environment Canada meteorologist, said winds from the northwest will continue to blanket southern Ontario with smoke until at least Friday, when they are expected to change direction and blow northward.

That shift would then put communities north of the fires in the crosshairs, he said.

“It’s only displacing the problem,” Bégin said, “as long as the forest fires are not under control and they emit very large quantities of fine particles.”

The yellow-orange haze of particles in the air over Toronto is particularly bad and can have an impact on people’s health, Bégin said.

Environment Canada is warning that the risk of smoke inhalation is most acute for children, people who are older or pregnant, and those with chronic illnesses. It’s encouraging people to limit their time outdoors and watch for symptoms of throat irritation, headache, and cough, and more serious impacts like wheezing and chest pains.

Events across Toronto were cancelled Wednesday, due to poor air quality and heat warnings, including the FIFA Fan Festival, a planned broadcast of the England-Argentina semifinal World Cup game in Nathan Phillips Square, and an outdoor performance of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” in High Park.

The city also closed all wading pools, citing health concerns for young children, though outdoor pools will remain open.

Pat Kehs, a tourist visiting Toronto from Washington, DC, said he was surprised to see conditions in the city change so quickly after enjoying a few days of sunny, blue skies.

“Is this the apocalypse now? What’s going on here?” Kehs recalled thinking as he woke up on Wednesday and looked out of his hotel window. “This morning it was like a war zone.”

In B.C., lightning strikes were flickering across the southern Interior Wednesday afternoon as a weather system that firefighters fear will trigger a surge in ignitions began to make its presence felt, CP writes.

Environment Canada meteorologist Colin Fong said the focus will be on the severity and frequency of dry lightning over the next few days, with parched conditions on the ground ripe for new wildfires in the province’s south.

“That’s pretty much the main story for this week,” Fong said of the threat of dry lightning in southern B.C., stretching into Friday.

“It just basically means it’s so dry at the surface that any rain that falls from thunderstorms typically evaporates before it gets to the ground,” he said on Wednesday. “So that doesn’t really provide much relief in trying to saturate things, and the lightning is pretty much going to be the major factor.”

B.C.’s fire season has so far been moderate, with only about 20 fires burning as of Wednesday afternoon. But Colin Chapman, the director of wildfire operations for the BC Wildfire Service, warned on Tuesday that the surge in lightning strikes could trigger up to 150 fire starts in a single day.

Increasing activity clustered around Osoyoos, Kelowna, and the Alberta boundary could be seen on Environment Canada’s live lightning tracker.

Fong said the question now is the severity and frequency of the lightning strikes.

The forecast calls for the threat of dry lightning from the Okanagan eastward to Alberta, with the threat area expanding north and west on Friday as more thunderstorm activity with precipitation is expected.

This story was compiled from three dispatches published by The Canadian Press on July 15, 2026.