New Brunswick·NewThe province says it’s already preparing for next year’s wildfire season, but some opposition MLAs are questioning why it hasn’t shared any information about what caused major New Brunswick fires this year.Some MLAs believe province hesitant to release information about cause of major firesSavannah Awde · CBC News · Posted: Oct 08, 2025 4:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: 29 minutes agoProgressive Conservative MLA Kris Austin is questioning why the public doesn’t have answers yet about the cause of some of New Brunswick’s major wildfires this season. (Silas Brown/CBC)The New Brunswick government says it’s now planning for the next wildfire season, but some opposition MLAs are questioning why more information hasn’t been shared about the cause of this year’s fires. Appearing at a legislative committee on Wednesday, the deputy minister of the Department of Natural Resources, Cade Libby, said the department is still investigating what caused one such major blaze, outside Moncton, that put about 900 structures and 1,500 people at risk. Speaking with reporters at the legislature, Progressive Conservative MLA Kris Austin questioned why the public hasn’t gotten answers about what happened. “How are these fires starting? It seems to be a big question mark. And I get the impression government is a little hesitant to push that,” Austin said.”This disrupted a lot of New Brunswickers’ lives. We talk about Irishtown, very close to Moncton, very close to structures, where it could have been catastrophic had we not had the resources there quickly.”WATCH | ‘Valid questions’ remain on wildfire causes, MLA says:MLA wants more answers about New Brunswick’s intense wildfire seasonPreparations for next year’s wildfire season are already underway, but one opposition MLA says New Brunswickers deserve more information on what caused this year’s glut of blazes.Green Party Leader David Coon echoed that concern. “This government has proven itself, so far, to be extremely slow in sharing information with the public,” he said in an interview. “For me it’s… a crisis of accountability that’s going on here… By not sharing information, then you know, they escape that concern about having to hold someone accountable for a mishap.”The Department of Natural Resources referred follow-up questions about the investigation to the Department of Justice and Public Safety, which did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.Roger Collett, the province’s wildfire co-ordinator, has said another large fire outside Miramichi, known as the Oldfield Road fire, was likely human-caused.Provincial officials have said the Oldfield Road fire was most likely human-caused. (Government of New Brunswick)While wildfire season is supposed to end this month, Libby said the department is considering extending its safeguards past then. He said that will depend on conditions in the weeks to come, and how much rain the province gets. No structures lostLibby said no structures were lost in this year’s season, which to date has seen 422 fires burn through 3,505.3 hectares of land. That blows past New Brunswick’s 10-year average of 244 fires impacting 412.8 hectares.The situation has called for a large-scale response, Libby said, involving department staff, municipal firefighters and forestry companies that hold Crown timber licences.Liberal MLA Sam Johnston said his riding had private companies willing to contribute to the Oldfield fire response, and suggested the province could improve its process of working with those parties.Liberal MLA Sam Johnston suggested there should be a better process for dealing with private companies willing to contribute firefighting resources. (Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick)”Perhaps there could be better co-ordination and communication with local lumber contractors and companies, who also employ people who are trained to respond to those fires,” Johnston said.He said that could increase the speed of deployment, among other things. We’ve had kind of verbal agreements with these companies for quite some time… We are getting to a point where it makes sense to have something maybe more in writing and substantial.- Cade Libby, deputy minister, Department of Natural Resources The deputy minister said work is underway to formalize agreements with such companies, with an aim to have them in place before the 2026 season. “There will be a variety of purposes of the [memorandum of understanding], not only to get resources quickly, but it’s just really to understand the logistics of that, the communication and so forth that needs to happen with securing resources,” Libby said. “We’ve had kind of verbal agreements with these companies for quite some time, for many years. But we felt that, you know, we are getting to a point where it makes sense to have something maybe more in writing and substantial.” Deputy minister Cade Libby said the Department of Natural Resources is considering extending what it considers the wildfire season, lasting longer into the fall. (Silas Brown/CBC)The deputy minister said the department will be over budget this year due to the costs of fighting the wildfires but he couldn’t say exactly by how much. The province’s next quarterly fiscal update, looking at expenditures up to Sept. 30, is expected next month.Coon acknowledged it’s difficult to budget for annual wildfire response, but he is concerned that the province isn’t prepared enough for the future. He said the MOUs being worked on now should have already been in place. “It fits into this problem with having to, to now plan for rapidly accelerating climate change, and all the consequences that brings like increased fire risk, and the department and the government not funding the ability of the department to catch up with that.”ABOUT THE AUTHORSavannah Awde is a reporter with CBC New Brunswick. You can contact her with story ideas at savannah.awde@cbc.ca.
Wildfire investigation answers aren’t coming fast enough, opposition MLAs say
