'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
More than 400 wildfires are burning thousands of hectares of forest and land across Canada in an "unprecedented" start to wildfire season.
Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs says, in his career, he's never seen such an early and devastating start to the wildfires season marked by large fires in regions countrywide.
"We're seeing fires like we've never seen before, at an earlier stage in the month of May than we've ever seen," McMullen told CTV's Your Morning on Wednesday.
Volunteers comprise the majority of Canada’s firefighting capacity, putting aside their day jobs when they are called. McMullen estimates, of the 126,000 firefighters countrywide, between 80,000 and 90,000 are volunteers.
"It's unbelievable,” he said, suggesting most Canadians have no idea. "The volunteer system has been around for centuries, and it works most of the time. What it isn't designed for is for the long, sustained, drawn-out events similar to what we're seeing in the wildfires."
Given the current needs, and the expectation they will not be reduced in the future, McMullen says there needs to be more incentive for people to become volunteer firefighters.
"Right now our volunteers get a tax incentive of up to $3,000," he said. "I know we use the term volunteer, but the fact of the matter is there is some form of remuneration given to these volunteers in our communities and we've asked the government to increase that tax incentive from $3,000 to $10,000 annually."
On June 8, 2022, six fires were burning out of control , among active wildfires covering 30, 575 hectares.
The latest data available, according to records from the National Wildland Fire Situation Report, as of May 31, 2023, 45 fires were uncontrolled and 2.7 million hectares of land had been burned.
Given the extreme season, McMullen says fire crews are "absolutely exhausted."
"But they continue to do what they do every single day, which is to go out and give every effort that they possibly can to keep ourselves in our community safe," he said.
McMullen says training for more firefighters, including Indigenous fire crews, would also help.
"Indigenous communities just have a very different understanding of fire," he said. "They use it differently, they respect it differently, they've lived on the land for such a long time that they understand what the fire risk is in their city…They also protect their communities in a very different matter than us."
To watch the full interview click the video at the top of this article.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.