Investing in wildfire resilience

TECH

Investing in wildfire resilience

What happened: The federal government will invest $45.7 million in 30 projects across Canada to strengthen wildfire resilience through the Build and Mobilize Foundational Wildland Fire Knowledge program.

The details: Projects include wildfire risk assessments, adaptive forestry approaches, and community resilience planning, with an emphasis on Indigenous-led fire stewardship. The funding complements the newly launched Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada, a national hub for wildfire innovation, and is part of the broader National Adaptation Strategy.

A growing threat: Canada is facing its second-worst season on record (surpassed only by 2023). Globally, California, South Korea and Spain all faced major blazes in 2025, with more happening outside typical “fire seasons”.

Earlier this year, G7 countries pledged to work together on preventing and mitigating wildfires, including technology, data collection, and interoperability.

Why it matters: Fires have become the country’s single largest source of carbon emissions - double the oil and gas sector in 2023 - while disrupting energy grids, supply chains, and insurance markets.

Meeting this threat means new approaches to forest and land management, insurance markets, building practices and more.

Yes, but:

• Investment still lags the pace of escalating wildfire risk

• Adaptation tech attracts less than 10% of global climate tech funding

• Foundational research often fails to translate into practice on the ground

• Tech solutions need to adapt to an industry still largely working on pen and paper

The bottom line: Ottawa is signalling a pivot from firefighting to resilience-building. But success will hinge on whether research and innovation can scale and adapt into operational practice - and whether adaptation tech finally attracts the capital it needs to grow.

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CLIMATE CAPITAL

☣️ LiORA (Calgary, AB and Saskatoon, SK) secured $5.1 million in seed funding for its soil remediation platform. LiORA analyzes pollutants and deploys nutrients to break them down, claiming to cut site remediation from 20 years to just 5.

💨 TerraFixing (Ottawa, ON) received a $2.5 million investment from the government of Canada for its cold-weather carbon removal system.

🔌 The federal government also announced $25 million for 33 EV charging projects. Recipients include Gamotech (electric heavy duty trucks and maintenance equipment), Calogy (battery and thermal management systems), and Polara Energy (EV charging infrastructure).

🔋 Li-Cycle (Toronto, ON) has been acquired for $43.6 million by Glencore, one of the startups main investors. Li-Cycle co-founder Ajay Kochar will lead Glencore’s Battery Recycling division.

IN THE FIELD

💧 Hydrogen fuel cell maker Ballard is reconsidering its heavy-duty truck business as part of a strategic realignment to cut costs and focus on markets with the strongest commercial traction.

🚌 Researchers at McMaster University are building a new tool to make electric bus planning more accessible and cost effective for public transit agencies.

🏛️ The BC Government published its Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) offset protocol to support project development in the province.

🔌 VoltSafe will pilot its smart plug for marine vessels at the Port of San Diego, one of the world’s largest recreational boating hubs.

🏭️ Taiwan’s Minth Group and Japan’s AISIN Corporation will build a new 150,000 sqft EV parts plant in Windsor, ON to supply EV components across North Amercia. It’s the second Ontario plant from Minth this year.

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ECOSYSTEM VIEW

The startups building wildfire resiliency

These Canadian startups are building solutions for a hotter world across fire suppression, monitoring and prevention:

⚡️ Skyward - Lightning prevention over high-risk areas

🧯 FireSwarm Solutions - Heavy lift drones for automated fire suppression

🧠 SenseNet - Early wildfire detection, monitoring, management, and decision-making

🌎️ Ecopia - Large-scale digital twins to develop strategic planning for climate resilience and emergency preparedness

🚨 CRWN.ai - Transmission line monitoring for early-stage intervention before flames begin

Who’d we miss? Let me know in the comments →

NEWS

📡 Signals & Currents

⚡️ Canada plans electricity projects - Electricity transmission projects on the East and West coasts could reorient power from flowing to the U.S. and fuel Carney’s energy superpower ambitions. The projects could unlock abundant hydro from BC and Quebec, pairing it with new wind and nuclear generation. [FP]

Plastics treaty falls apart - Negotiations to address plastic pollution once again ended without consensus. [CBC]

Oil outlook - OPEC and the IEA have radically different forecasts for the future of oil, with OPEC raising its forecast for next year while the IEA expects supply to outpace demand. [Reuters]

Lyten revives Northvolt - The U.S. startup acquired the failed battery-maker’s assets for $5B, reviving hope for its projects in Canada and Europe. [EV Report]

Energy abundance leverage - Energy is a “solved problem” for China’s AI sector, while the U.S. struggles with exponential growth and grid constraints. [Forbes]

Forestry reboot - Canada announced over $1B to support the softwood lumber industry, including market diversification and high-value products. [PM]

Ford goes back to basics - Ford is planning a low-cost EV truck using a simplified production process similar to Tesla’s [Ars Technica]

Tilting against windmills - The Trump admin is ramping up its attack on wind and solar, with deeper cuts and cancelling approved projects. [Bloomberg]

U.S. critical minerals push - The U.S. is proposing a $1B funding push to develop domestic critical minerals and materials to counter China’s dominance in the space. [G&M]

Climate-resilient cocoa - Mars is turning to CRISPR-gene editing to develop more resilient cocoa as climate stress is putting global chocolate supply at risk. [CNBC]

COMMUNITY

🚀 ideaBUILD: Helping early-stage deep tech and physical products startups to bring ideas to operational prototype. Apply by August 19th.

➡️ Discover more funding opportunities.

🗓️ MaRS Climate Impact: Bringing together the world’s foremost tech and finance leaders to speed up the adoption of climate solutions.. Toronto, Dec 2-3rd.

➡️ Discover more climate events.

🧑🏻‍💻 Corinex is hiring a Director, Human Resources to enhance grid visibility, flexibility, and decarbonization.

➡️ Find more open roles.