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# This smoke situation is genuinely terrifying

> We woke up to Ontario buried in wildfire smoke again - and all I can really do is watch it become normal and be frustrated that leaders won't act.

- Published: 2026-07-15
- Tags: [Wildfires](https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/tags/wildfires.md), [Climate Change](https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/tags/climate-change.md), [Air Quality](https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/tags/air-quality.md), [hm...](https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/tags/hm.md)
- Web page: https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/posts/ScaryNewWorld.html

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This morning we woke up to this view:

![Apocalyptic smoke over Toronto](https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/assets/ScaryNewWorld_image-20260715183342946.jpg)

Looks apocalyptic, doesn't it? The scary thing: according to my trainer, who grew up in Toronto, this is a relatively new phenomenon. There have always been wildfires here, and in fact the forests of Canada depend on them, but he cannot remember a time when there were so many that the smoke blocked out the sun. Now it's a yearly recurrence.

What's especially scary is the sheer size of it all. I went over to [The True Size](https://thetruesize.com/), which lets you compare country sizes on the map. Here's how Ontario stacks up against Germany, where I come from:

![Ontario compared to Germany](https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/assets/ScaryNewWorld_image-20260715184022837.png)

And now take a look at where the smoke is coming from:

![Fire map](https://unprompted.dirkprimbs.de/assets/ScaryNewWorld_image-20260715184050959.png)

200 fires in Ontario alone, spread over an area the size of Germany.

This is scary stuff.

Also this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c1llRESR6o

The train operators in that video were successfully evacuated, but fun fact: several freight trains were simply abandoned, including this one. It turns out trains carry plenty of combustible material, which makes driving through kilometers of burning hellscape really challenging. Videos like this one genuinely give me chills.

All of this is to say that our leaders are pretty moronic for not addressing this. (Drill, baby, drill, anyone?) If we put the money we currently spend on blowing things up into renewables instead, and into finding ways to counteract the effects of the ongoing climate catastrophe, we could be in a much better place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfrcqb0bbE8