Drivers of extreme wildfire years in the 1965–2019 fire regime of the T???ch? First Nation territory, Canada

Exceptionally large areas burned in 2014 central Northwest Territories (Canada), leading members of the T???ch? First Nation to characterize this year as ‘extreme’. Top-down climatic and bottom-up environmental drivers fire behavior boreal forest are relatively well understood, but not extreme wildfire years (EWY). We investigated temporal spatial distributions regime components (fire occurrence, size, cause, season length) on territory from 1965 2019. used BioSIM data weather stations interpolate mean conditions, fuel moisture content fire-weather indices for each season, we described characteristics areas. identified characterized EWY, i.e., exceeding 80th percentile annual area study period. Temperature were main burned. Nine EWY occurred 2019, including 2014. Compared non-EWY, had significantly higher temperature (>14.7°C) exceeded threshold values Drought Code (>514), Initial Spread Index (>7), Fire Weather (>19). Our results will help limit effects human safety, health Indigenous livelihoods lifestyles.