As wildfires continue to burn across Canada, American politicians have been vocal about their displeasure surrounding smoke that has made its way to American skies, including taking aim at Canadian sovereignty.
That comes after Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Jack Bergman, John James, Lisa McClain and John Moolenaar penned a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and sent it on Wednesday “demanding immediate action from the Canadian government.”
“American lungs are paying the price for Canadian inaction, year after year,” the letter said.
“Sovereignty comes with responsibility, and the responsibility to prevent a foreseeable disaster from crossing into another country’s airspace has not been met.”
The reference to Canadian sovereignty comes from U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to make Canada the “51st state” and after repeated threats to annex Greenland.
Defence Minister David McGuinty announced Friday that the Canadian Armed Forces are currently on “standby” to help Ontario deal with the impacts of the wildfires raging in the northern regions of the province.
According to Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, there are actively 903 wildfires burning across Canada, with 3,656 total being reported in 2026. Nearly 200 wildfires are currently blazing across northern Ontario, provincial officials said Friday.
The comments from American officials come after years of support sent south by Canadians to help fight American wildfires, however. Here are some of the recent examples.
2025 California wildfires
From Jan. 7 to 31, 2025, 14 major wildfires affected the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Diego County in California.
On Jan. 12, 2025, former emergency preparedness minister Harjit Sajjan posted on X that the federal government, alongside Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, was ready to deploy 250 firefighters, aircraft equipment and other resources, saying that “our American friends have asked for help to fight the wildfires in California and Team Canada is responding.”
He also added that the Canadian Armed Forces were also standing by to move personnel and equipment, with the Canadian Coast Guard being made available as well.
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Sajjan posted the next day that “this is what neighbours do.”
2020 California wildfires
According to Natural Resources Canada, “in 2020, 594 Canadian firefighters and specialist staff participated in deployments to the United States.”
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) mobilized two wildland firefighting hand crews from Quebec on Sept. 10, 2020, to assist with wildfire suppression efforts in California.
Two Canadian crews, with 40 firefighters, and agency representatives arrived at NIFC that week.
At the time, 59 large wildfires were burning across the western U.S., and more than 5.2 million acres had burned at that point in the year.
2000 American wildfire season
Nearly seven million acres of land burned across Texas to Montana, which directly borders Canada, in 2000, costing the American government More than US$2 billion in damages.
The country also experienced “atypical dry conditions” that year, according to a report from the National Park Service. Fire crews responded to the blaze from late April to the end of October.
In response, more than 1,300 Canadian personnel were mobilized to the U.S. in what Natural Resources Canada calls a “truly record-setting year.”
Has the U.S. helped Canada fight fires?
The U.S. has in the past also sent firefighting support to help Canadian responders fight fires.
In June 2025, the U.S. National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) “mobilized federal firefighting personnel to support wildfire suppression efforts in Canada” across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, B.C. and Alberta, sending 214 resources, including airtankers, crews, overhead staff and complex incident management teams.
Canada saw its second-worst wildfire season on record in 2025, with fires that burned in a majority of provinces across the country.
In June 2023, the NICC stated that multiple requests for resources from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) would be filled for Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec.
These resources included hand crews, incident management teams, fireline leadership positions and various aviation assets.
The 2023 wildfire season has been recognized as Canada’s worst on record.
The NICC announced on July 19, 2023 that “more than 2,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel from the U.S. have been deployed to assist with fires in Canada.”
Canada also received support from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Mexico to combat those wildfires.
“The mobilization, which began on May 8, currently includes 567 U.S. fire personnel assigned to wildfires in multiple provinces in Canada,” the press release reads.
“We’re glad we can continue to support Canada while they continue to experience unprecedented activity,” said Jeff Arnberger, chair of the NMAC, said at the time. “As long as they need us, we will continue to help Canada’s firefighters.”
According to Natural Resources Canada, the U.S. sent 418 firefighting personnel to help in 2019, 12 in 2018 and 47 in 2017.
What are other American leaders saying?
Republican congressman Nick Langworthy posted on X that “Canada must take meaningful action to prevent these catastrophic wildfires and protect both Canadians and Americans.”
“If it refuses to do so, there should be consequences.”
Republican congressman Bill Huizenga also said on X that “Canada’s inability to mitigate, contain, and prevent its wildfires must be addressed. These annual fires significantly harm not only our health and quality of life, but also our economic prosperity.”
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said in a Wednesday press release that “the United States will continue to coordinate closely with Canada, just as we have for more than four decades of shared wildfire emergencies.”
Parliamentary secretary to the federal energy and natural resources minister Corey Hogan announced on Aug. 12, 2025 that $45.7 million in funding would go towards wildfire prevention and risk assessment research projects.
This came after Michigan Rep. John James sent a letter to Carney saying his constituents were choking on toxic wildfire smoke, with another group of Republican members of Congress expressing similar concerns to Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, earlier in July 2025.
Trump is such a scumbag, he forgets Canadian fire fighters have gone to assist usa fires over the years so maybe if he puts his tiny brain to work and sends some usa fire fighters to assist Canada. It’s called being good ngbrs Trump, something you would not understand unless there is money in it for you personally.
This isn’t climate change, these fires are deliberately set. Same as last year’s fires.
Maybe the Americans should build large fans and using Quebec Hydro Electricity blow the air back into Canada. You fools, to think one can manage 1.2 billion acres of boreal forest. The Tramp (Trump) and his sycophants should help us rake (as he suggested about California) our forests. How stupid these people are. Climate change is happening and events will only become more severe and frequent. That’s a fact.
American greed means the whole world is suffering because of their climate crisis denial, continued pushing of fossil fuels, and war-mongering. Canadians continue to suffer because of American greed and continue to show restraint against American political interference. Ford is correct on this one: stop whining and start showing some of the Christian values you seem to have forgotten in your selfishness.
Time to tell americans to “Go hump a stump”
The wife heard the guys from the US ranting about the smoke and said “are they idiots” my reply was, no just typical Americans
Locked and loaded, first smoke molecule that blows south and turdronto is blown to bits
Canadians have died fighting US fires.
Time for Trump to go. Time for America to wake up.
No exports, close the border, give them nothing until they apologize for their insolence.
Doug Ford cutting firefighting budgets and some geriatric whining fake orange tan fool incessantly complaining. How do people support these buffoons?
Fords incompetence is over the top. He let this fire get out of control because of his own inaction.
Also, Ford badmouthed the USA for over a year and now expects us to help them? I hope Trump offers no help.
Im so triggered and gay
Hey Trump, did you know a Canadian died helping fight fires in Colorado? No, you’re too stupid to know that.
If only we could deliberately blow all the smoke south.
Meanwhile I’m looking at the Bonner’s Ferry fire burning across the valley, and guess where the smoke is? Canada. If only Trump could control the smoke as much as he manipulates the media.
Trump is getting stupider by the day.
At this point with the way the United States is treating Canada we have no obligation to help them when they have fires. We’ve always been there in the past. We were there for 9/11. All the United States does is b**** and complain about everybody else. They should be left on their own to figure things out for themselves and we should never offer any help ever again. That goes for the Mexicans too. They are always there to help the United States. With the way Mexico is treated they should tell the us where to go. I’m done with everything that has to do with the United States.
Every day we see just how friggin stupid these american politicians are, with the dumbest MF of them all in charge. Maybe Trump could build a tall wall and install some fans to blow the smoke back into Canada.
So what about when US rivers overflow into Canada and farmers lose their crops and some lose their house? Or what about when their smoke comes up here? This is just assinine.
We need to stop helping those ungrateful jerks. They clearly have no respect for anyone