What Wildfire Numbers Don’t Tell Us
Author: Danika Paquette Rochette, PhD Candidate in Population Health; School of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences, University of Ottawa | Editors: Tashi Stampp and Romina Garcia de leon (blog coordinators) | Reviewer: Dr. Karen P Phillips
Published: November 13th, 2026
What the Numbers Miss
Six million Canadians live in a wildfire-prone region. As Canada’s 2026 wildfire season winds down, most of what we hear about wildfires focuses on numbers: hectares burned, hospitalizations, evacuation orders, homes lost, and air quality readings. But these numbers don’t tell us who is carrying the greatest burden, or who has the greatest challenges in protecting themselves. Wildfires can affect women and men differently because of both biological factors and the social roles and conditions that shape their lives. Sex can influence how the body responds to wildfires, while gender can shape caregiving responsibilities, work, safety, and access to resources during an emergency. In other words, wildfire risk is not only about where the fire burns.
Smoke is Only Part of the Story
Starting with the body, wildfire smoke can affect fertility and pregnancy outcomes. Women may also experience more airway resistance and stronger respiratory effects during smoke events because they have smaller lungs and narrower airways than men. Following the 2016 Alberta wildfires, pregnant women exposed to the fires reported a higher rate of fetal growth restriction, preterm birth, and increased cesarean delivery. However, biology is only one part of the story.
Gender also shapes who performs different roles during and after a disaster. Extreme weather events can increase women’s exposure to domestic and sexual violence, psychological distress, and economic instability, while reinforcing existing gender roles. After the 2015 wildfires in northern Saskatchewan, women and other caregivers performed much of the counselling and logistical recovery work. This includes caring for children and older family members, checking on neighbours, and cooking. That work rarely gets recognized as “rebuilding,” in the same way as physical labour. Maternal and emotional labour often receive far less formal recognition than the physical work of rebuilding. Yet, both forms of labour are essential to recovery. When one is recognized, and the other remains largely invisible, it can reinforce gendered assumptions about whose work is valued.
“Just Stay Indoors” Is Not Simple for Everyone
It is not only about gender. During disasters, the social determinants of health that already contribute to inequities can get even worse. Outdoor workers, people with lower incomes, and those without access to a vehicle can face greater wildfire smoke exposure. Even basic wildfire advice comes with assumptions. Stay indoors, use an air filter, monitor emergency alerts, and “leave if an evacuation order is issued” assumes you have safe housing, air filtration, reliable phone or internet service, flexible work, transportation, and somewhere safe to go. Not everyone has these resources. For Indigenous, northern and remote communities, for example, “stay informed” is more difficult when reliable Internet and phone service cannot be taken for granted. For people caring for children or older relatives, leaving quickly may not be as simple as getting in a car and driving away. Wildfire guidance can only protect people if it works for those without safe housing, a car, an air filter, a steady income, or someone else to help with the kids.
What Would Better Planning Look Like?
This is where Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis, or SGBA for short, can help. The idea is simple: before creating an emergency plan, ask whether sex, gender, income, work, caregiving, geography, or other conditions could change someone’s ability to follow it. Canada uses similar thinking through Gender-Based Analysis (GBA Plus), which looks at how policies may vary across population groups.
A newer tool is the Gendered Emergency Management Framework (GEM-F), released by the Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health in 2025. GEM-F gives organizations tools to build gender and equity in emergency planning, response, and recovery. It is a promising start. But it is still new, and there is still a gap between recognizing gendered experiences and having clear sex-specific guidance for issues like smoke exposure, pregnancy, fertility, evacuation stress, and disrupted healthcare access.
Both healthcare professionals and women themselves have reported limited awareness of how disasters and environmental exposures specifically affect women’s health in Canada. If we only count hectares burned, homes lost, and people evacuated, we miss part of the human cost of wildfires. We miss the pregnancies affected by smoke, workers unable to stay indoors, families without access to transportation, and caregiving responsibilities that continue long after the flames are gone. Better wildfire planning starts by recognizing who and what we have been missing.
