- Brian Paré entered a guilty plea to 13 charges of arson and one charge of arson with willful disregard for human life.
- A total of 400 individuals had to evacuate their homes in Chapais, Quebec.
- The wildfire season in Canada in 2023 broke all previous records, burning almost 45.5 million acres.
A Canadian man named Brian Paré entered a guilty plea to 13 charges of arson and one charge of arson with willful disregard for human life, which stemmed from incidents that transpired between May and September of the previous year.
A total of 400 individuals had to evacuate their homes in Chapais, Quebec, as a result of one of Paré’s 14 fires, which displaced hundreds of people from their homes. In the biggest fire that Paré acknowledged he started, almost 870 hectares were torched.
A Canadian conspirator
When Paré was seen near several flames and it was discovered that he had posted on social media several times, accusing the Canadian government of deliberately starting fires to spread the belief that climate change is real, police took an interest in him.
Once authorities obtained authorization to install a monitoring device on his car, they were able to follow it to the sites of further fires. When Paré was caught in September, he acknowledged that he had started a few of the fires.
The wildfire season in Canada in 2023 broke all previous records, burning almost 45.5 million acres. The fires’ smoke spread southward, stifling American cities and even reaching as far east as Europe.
Conspiracy theorists have always been drawn to wildfires, claiming that governments, environmental campaigners, or even laser beams from space are responsible for starting them.
Disinformation spread widely after Canada’s historic wildfires, with some even claiming the fires were started on purpose to scare people into taking climate action. Prominent individuals like Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, and Maxime Bernier contributed to the spread of these conspiracies.
Wildfires are intentionally started by humans as well as unintentionally caused by things like tossing out a lit cigarette. The majority of this year’s flames were triggered by lightning strikes, accounting for roughly 53% of all fires that caused more than 99% of the land to burn.
