Glyphosate and wildfires
This week, thick wildfire smoke blankets parts of North America from fires burning across Canada and northern United States. Over 800 wildfires are burning through Canadian forests right now and firefighters in the United States are working to contain 48 uncontained large fires.
Most of our conversations about glyphosate focus on farms, food, and health. But across North America, thousands of hectares of public forest land are sprayed with glyphosate-based herbicides every year, often from the air, over land that communities depend on for clean water, wildlife, and in many cases, food and cultural practice.
Glyphosate is primarily used in forestry to kill broadleaf species like birch, poplar, and berry plants that compete with commercially valuable conifers, to control invasive plant species, and to clear pipeline and road corridors. This makes for more uniform and more flammable forests. Not to mention the destruction of broadleaf species, which takes away an important food source for wildlife, especially moose, whose population has declined dramatically. Not to mention the destruction of broadleaf species, which takes away an important food source for wildlife, especially moose, whose population has declined dramatically. Many studies show that, based on a 20-year baseline, the total population has declined by roughly 29%.
Glyphosate and Wildfire
Glyphosate in forestry systematically eliminates plants that act as a fire buffer while also leaving behind dead vegetation, creating more flammable material in the forest. The aspen and birch trees that are impacted by glyphosate spraying slow fire spread naturally. They keep flames low to the ground where firefighters can contain them. When conifer forests burn, they feed the conditions that make the next fire season worse because they release more than twice the carbon of deciduous forests.
Glyphosate Spraying in the United States
A year-long investigation by Mother Jones found that the US Forest Service and its timber industry partners have been spraying glyphosate across clear-cut and fire-damaged forests at record levels. California alone sprayed 266,000 pounds of glyphosate on forests in 2023, five times the amount sprayed 20 years ago, making forest spraying the fastest-growing market for glyphosate in the state. The article from Mother Jones also outlines another concerning issue – glyphosate is regularly sprayed in forests and public lands where many people forage for food. This happens in the United States and across Canada. Many people enjoying foraged berries and mushrooms are unknowingly consuming this probable carcinogen.
Glyphosate Spraying in Canada
In Ontario, a grassroots campaign called Stop the Spray Ontario has been working on this issue for years. The group was started by a bush pilot and hunter named Joel Theriault. He became convinced something was wrong after harvesting a black bear that made his friends and family sick with symptoms that matched glyphosate overexposure. Last summer a planned aerial herbicide spray was halted thanks to a series of protests led by Indigenous communities and environmental advocates, including Stop the Spray Ontario.
Ontario banned cosmetic pesticide use in 2009 to protect families, children, pets, and communities from unnecessary chemical exposure. However, forestry was explicitly exempted. So, while glyphosate was banned from lawns and schoolyards, it is still being sprayed over the Crown forests, impacting land that rural families, Indigenous communities, and wildlife depend on for food, water, and cultural practices.
How the Industry has Responded – Switching Chemicals
In December 2025 a study that had been cited by regulators across the globe for 25 years to justify glyphosate was retracted over evidence it was ghostwritten by Monsanto and built on the company’s own unpublished research.
The industry in provinces like Alberta and Ontario is quietly switching to alternative, still problematic chemicals like Triclopyr and Imazapyr. Triclopyr is moderately to highly toxic to freshwater plants and fish, can stay in soil for up to a year or more, and its breakdown products pose significant risks to groundwater and surface water. Imazapyr stays in soil for over a year, moves readily through most soil types, and has contaminated surface and groundwater after arial sprays. Plants that are not being targeted, including those that are food and medicine to Indigenous communities, can still be reached by spray drift. Swapping one herbicide for another doesn’t actually fix the problems we’re outlining.
The Fight in the United States
Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of cancer patients filed suit against Bayer, arguing that glyphosate caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto failed to warn them. Bayer has paid out billions in settlements, and on June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Bayer, effectively closing the door on remaining state-level failure-to-warn claims and tossing out around 100,000 pending cases. The Trump administration has also filed an amicus brief in support of Bayer, designating glyphosate as critical to national defense under the Defense Production Act.
What can we do?
Change is possible. Quebec banned glyphosate in its public forests in 2001 and has managed its forests without it for 25 years. Last summer, because of organized community pressure aerial spraying has stopped in three Ontario forest districts.
OCA has been in this fight for 30 years. We launched the Millions Against Monsanto campaign in the mid-1990s. In 2017, OCA and Beyond Pesticides sued Monsanto for misleading the public about Roundup’s safety, and a federal judge ruled in OCA’s favor. OCA has tested major food brands for glyphosate contamination, sued companies that marketed contaminated products as natural, and was a founding organizer of the Monsanto Tribunal in The Hague, where judges concluded that Monsanto’s activities violated basic human rights. Bayer’s victory in the Supreme Court in June of 2026 is a setback, but bills restricting or banning glyphosate have already been introduced in a dozen states and OCA is working to help citizens push for the ban across the country.
https://stopthespraycanada.ca/
In 2024, BC Forestry, under application number FOR-SBC-PP-2024-2029 addressed as an invasive species plan giving the illusion it is not decided yet what the plan is, and using deadly chemicals, toxins and poisons classed as herbicides to eradicate invasive species. It makes no sense and I don’t understand why the government would utilize this arsenal of poisons in one breath then talk about climate change in the next.
Also stated in the plan is cultural control. What is cultural control?
Plants, trees and vegetation provide us with the air we breathe, the food we eat, the heat and medicine, among a few benefits and without them we no longer exist. Explorers, adventurers, nurseries and travellers have always brought in plants and seeds from other parts of the world. What is indicated as invasive are such plants that today are still being sold in nurseries or as seeds or travellers bring home to try. And polluting the earth with chemicals, toxins and poisons when some of the vegetation to be eradicated, the seeds have a lifespan of 10 years. These tiny seeds are in the ground, and the toxic poisons/chemicals will disperse into the waterways and ecosystem long before the seeds will no longer be viable.
Putting tonnes of toxic chemical poisons into the environment, that all (Yes all) have a detrimental effect on human life, plant and animal life, water systems, bees, environmental, soil and air – is leading us to extinction. I strongly disagree with any plan to limit life on earth through use of toxic chemical poisons whether it is a herbicide, pesticide and/or other pharmaceuticals.
Time frame of application : April 15, 2024 – April 15 2029
Who: The purpose: – invasive plants on Provincial Public Land under jurisdiction of Ministry of Forests; Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure; Ministry of Water, Ministry of Land and Resource Stewardship,Ministry of Environment; Ministry of Climate Change Strategy
Where: Applies to: – Southern and Coastal B.C. and Northern Coast Haida Gwaii, Regional Districts of: Alberni – Clayoquot, Capital, Cariboo, Central Coast, Central, Kootenay, Central Okanagan, Columbia Shuswap, Comox Valley, Cowichan, Valley, East Kootenay, Fraser Valley, Kootenay Valley,, Metro Vancouver, Mount Waddington, Nanaimo, North Coast, North Okanagan, Okanagan Similkameen, Qathet, Squamish-Lillooet, Strathcona, Sunshine Coast, Thompson-Nicola
How: The methods include: Mechanical – cultural – biological control – and herbicides
Application of herbicides by: Wick/wipe-on, stem injection, ground vehicle mounted sprayers, backpack and/or handheld sprayers.
What: Herbicides to be used; Aminocyclopyrachlor – Truvist; Navius VM (Bayer)- (is a tree killing herbicide and as of May 16, 2019 has been restricted in Oregon.);
Aminopyralid – Milestone, Restore II, Restore NXT, Clearview, Reclaim IIA (Dow Agrosciences) – (very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects, causes serious eye damage.);
Clopyralid – Lontrel XC (Corteva)- (a hormone disruptor that has a similar mode of action to 2,4-D);
Dicamba – Dyvel, Vanquish, Banvel- (see diflufenzopyr); Diflufenzopyr Overdrive (BASF/Bayer) – (contain allergen sulfites, eye irritant, skin sensitizer, poison, toxic to non-target terrestrial plants and aquatic organisms. Symptoms of overexposure to dicamba may include dizziness, muscle weakness, loss of appetite, vomiting, decreased heart rate, shortness of breath, incontinence, cyanosis, muscle spasms, exhaustion and loss of voice.);
Fluroxypyr Starane, Pulsar- (harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects.);
Glyphosate – Roundup WeatherMax, Vantage Plus Max/VPMII, Vantage XRT; Roundup Transorb HC (Dow Agrosciences)- (associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), have an effect on the environment and be harmful to fish, crustaceans and amphibians as well asbeneficial bacteria in soil and water, harmful to bees.; 2,4-D – 2,4-D Amine 600, Reclaim II B, Restore B, Grazon XC (Dow Agrosciences)- (used in the Vietnam war as Agent Orange, cause coughing, burning, dizziness, temporary loss of muscle coordination, fatigue, muscle weakness,nausea, endocrine-disrupting chemical, impedes normal action of estrogen, androgen and thyroid hormone, decrease fertility, risk of birth defects.;
Imazapyr – Arsenal, Arsenal-Powerline, Habitat- (causes serious eye irritation, harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects.); Metsulfuron-methyl – Escort, Clearview, Reclaim A, Navius VM (Dupont)- (very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects, skin and eye irritation, poisonous if ingested or inhaled, may cause reproduction problems.);
Picloram – Tordon 22K, Grazon XC, Tordon 101 (Dow Agrosciences) – (the same as 2,4-D above); Florpyrauxifen-benzyl – Rinskor, Milestone NXT, Restore NXT- (Similar and same effects as glyphosate);
Triclopyr – Garlon RTU, Garlon XRT, Triclopyr 480- (causes skin and eye irritation)
And now we get the full picture. Tons of chemicals have been sprayed for decades across the west coast of North America, combined with intentional mismanagement of fire prevention and firefighting. We are now seeing the results.
Don’t get me wrong. There are thousands of firefighters, lower-level bureaucrats, volunteers, and many others that are doing their jobs with good intentions. The problem is that there are simply following established protocols and orders, with decisions and policies coming from the top. And that is the head of the snake.
EB, DB
