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In September 2020, as wildfires burned millions of acres across the western United States, social media users began circulating maps of those fires along with comments questioning (in earnest or in jest) why only the United States, and not the bordering country of Canada, was being affected by the plague of fires -- such as, So weird that the fires just abruptly stop at the Canadian border. Other versions suggested this anomaly cast doubt on the notion that the wildfires were truly natural disasters or linked to climate change, bearing comments such as If these were natural disasters, wouldn't Canada be covered in flames like we are? and Don't you find it odd how climate change recognizes borders ... west coast on fire. Canadian border it stops ... very little in comparison ... then it resumes in Alaska: For those who take such posts seriously, the simple answer is that fires don't stop at national borders, but many maps produced by U.S. agencies only display U.S.-derived data and thus don't reflect activity occurring across the border. But western Canada did indeed also experience wildfires in 2020, as a map from the same time frame produced by a non-U.S. governmental agency, Natural Resources Canada showed fire hot spots on both sides of the border: It was certainly true that wildfires were comparatively much more prevalent in the western U.S. than in western Canada in September 2020, a phenomenon that news accounts attributed to local weather and pandemic-related restrictions:
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