A group dedicated to responding to climate change and its impact on Atlantic Canada is calling the wildfire crisis across the country this season “scary.”

Canada has already exceeded previous records on the total area burned by wildfires in one season at more than 90,000 square kilometres.

Smoke from forest fires has resulted in numerous air quality warnings in many parts of the country and across the border into the United States.

Executive Director of Climatlantic, Sabine Dietz says the situation is frightening especially this early in the season.

She says experts might say that the forests were dry and temperatures were going to be high, but it still feels “a bit early” for what we’ve seen to date.

However, she cautions against drawing the direct link between wildfires and climate change. As she puts it, the situation is far more complicated than that.

As an example she points to land use and resource development as contributing factors. She says forests that are managed tend to have less diversity, and fires tend to spread faster in monocultures of a single species like pine, fir or spruce.