BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 26, 2023
With nearly 90 percent of the state covered by forests, Maine has the highest rate of forest coverage in the country, and most of Maine’s 1.3 million residents live outside densely developed urban centers, meaning their homes could be at risk of damage or destruction from a forest fire that spreads into their neighborhoods. Large-scale forest fires — which in recent years have attracted a lot of attention in the western U.S. and Canada as climate change has helped millions of acres go up in flames — have happened in Maine before and could happen again. Mainers battled widespread forest fires in 1825, 1908 and 1947, but a good example of the potential Maine now faces occurred less than a month ago in Nova Scotia, less than 100 miles away from Maine. Wildfires there in late May and early June destroyed hundreds of homes, temporarily displaced thousands of people and burned tens of thousands of acres.