Mila and NRCan build AI emulator for wildfire hazard maps

Mila and Natural Resources Canada's forestry division unveiled an AI emulator that replaces the BurnP3+ wildfire hazard simulator in the national workflow. It runs 800 to 3,400 times faster, cutting months of computation to hours. A CA$99,000 federal grant funded development, and an open-source release is planned.

• Emulator runs 800 to 3,400 times faster than BurnP3+ depending on hardware
• Model trained on tens of thousands of BurnP3+ runs from the 2026 season
• CA$99,000 NRCan grant covered development from October 2025 to March 2026
• 2026 season: over 5,400 fires, 4.5 million hectares burned, 33,750 evacuated