The Canadian Red Cross response to 2025 wildfires is the largest  operation in the organization’s recent history.

Since May, the Red Cross has been providing humanitarian assistance to people impacted by wildfires across the country with operations in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Atlantic Canada, surpassing operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year’s wildfire response includes operating a mega-congregate shelter with capacity for more than 3,000 people, deploying 1,200 personnel, registering 52,000 people, securing 815 flights for 10,000 people, and securing 200,000 hotel nights.

Data collected from this year’s wildfire season reveals a new threshold for both the size and complexity of response operations in Canada, and it is critical to prepare for future events, the organization said in a press release.

The Red Cross recommends the need for:

• strengthened capacity to respond to all-hazard events in Canada;
• a permanent investment in a civilian operational response capacity such as that of the Red Cross Humanitarian Workforce; and
• enhanced co-ordination across government and whole-of-society response actors.

This year’s rise in response operations demonstrates a year-over-year trend in rising emergencies across Canada.

Continued investments in pan-Canadian civilian response capacity, such as those made possible through the Government of Canada’s humanitarian workforce program, are critical to maintaining the response capacity needed to respond to rising events and must be maintained.

“We have reached a critical tipping point this response season, with more than 1,200 Red Cross personnel deployed to support fire operations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Atlantic Canada. This represents the largest volume of domestic response operations in our modern history, with needs continuing to rise,” said Conrad Sauvé, Canadian Red Cross president and CEO.

“We continue to surge our response with specialized expertise to meet rising demands. Continued investment in our Civilian Response capacity is critical as we can no longer treat these events as exceptional.”

Quick facts

During the wildfire response, the Red Cross:

• deployed 1,200 personnel to support response operations –including 630 volunteer deployments contributing more than 88,000 volunteer hours;
• secured 815 flights carrying more than 10,000 passengers requiring evacuation from their communities;
• operated 45 reception sites across four provinces; and
• operated 11 congregate shelters, including a mega-shelter with capacity for more than 3,000 people in Winnipeg.