A University of Victoria and Environment Canada study says human influences on climate change played a major role in B-C’s record wildfire season in 2017. The study says key factors in the record fire season were the extremely warm, dry conditions that were also reflected in unprecedented fire behaviour as 1.2-million hectares of woodland was burned. Researchers compared the likelihood of the risk factors affecting the extreme fire season — and also estimated what would have happened without the human influences on climate change. They found the extreme high temperatures of 2017 were 20 times more likely because of human-induced climate change and they also found the area burned was up to 11 times larger than it would have been without human influence on climate.