“The strongest infrastructure is not the one that performs best on an ordinary day. It is the one that continues delivering essential services when nature is at its most unforgiving.” – MJ Martin
Introduction
This week, Ontario is experiencing one of its most challenging combinations of environmental conditions in recent years. Intense wildfires across northwestern Ontario are producing vast smoke plumes that have drifted hundreds of kilometres eastward, while southern Ontario is enduring extreme heat and oppressive humidity. Toronto has briefly recorded some of the poorest air quality in the world as smoke and heat combined to create hazardous conditions.
At first glance, it would appear that smoke belongs to the world of public health and firefighting, while drinking water belongs to municipal utilities. In reality, these systems are tightly connected. A municipal water distribution system resembles the human circulatory system. When the body is placed under stress, every organ works harder. Likewise, when communities face wildfire smoke and extreme heat, every component of the water system experiences additional demands.
Water Demand Climbs Dramatically
Heat changes how people use water. Lawn irrigation increases, swimming pools require topping up, cooling systems consume more water, and residents drink significantly more than usual. Utilities often observe peak water demands approaching their annual maximum during prolonged heat events.
Firefighters battling local grass fires or structure fires further increase demand. Even communities located hundreds of kilometres from the forest fires may experience elevated consumption simply because high temperatures persist for days.
This creates higher flow rates throughout transmission mains and distribution networks. Pumps operate longer, storage reservoirs cycle more rapidly, and operators must carefully balance supply and pressure across the system. The demand for additional electricity to power the water pressure systems also adds increased cost burden to the distribution network.
Smoke Creates Operational Challenges
Smoke itself rarely contaminates a treated municipal distribution system because drinking water treatment plants are designed to protect finished water quality. However, smoke creates indirect operational problems.
Reduced visibility affects construction crews, utility maintenance personnel, meter installers, and emergency repair teams. Outdoor work must often be shortened or rescheduled because employees are exposed simultaneously to high concentrations of fine particulate matter, extreme heat, and elevated humidity. Environment Canada and Ontario health authorities have advised limiting strenuous outdoor activity during these smoke events.
The combination of heat stress and poor air quality also increases the likelihood of worker fatigue, requiring utilities to modify work schedules, provide additional rest periods, and increase hydration monitoring.
Protecting Water Sources
The greatest long term concern is not the smoke overhead but the fires themselves.
When forests burn, vegetation that normally stabilizes soil disappears. Subsequent rainfall can wash ash, sediment, nutrients, heavy metals, and organic material into rivers, lakes, and reservoirs that serve as drinking water sources. Treatment plants may experience rapidly increasing turbidity, requiring adjustments to coagulation, filtration, and disinfection processes.
Research from the United States Geological Survey and the American Water Works Association has shown that major wildfires can affect source water quality for months or even years following the fire, particularly after significant rainfall events.
Infrastructure Resilience
Utilities also prepare for indirect risks associated with wildfire emergencies.
Electrical transmission interruptions may require treatment plants and pumping stations to rely on standby generators. Telecommunications disruptions can interfere with SCADA systems, telemetry, and remote monitoring. Transportation closures may delay chemical deliveries, replacement parts, and maintenance crews.
The most resilient water utilities operate with redundant pumps, multiple power supplies, emergency storage reservoirs, diversified communications, and comprehensive emergency response plans. Like the multiple engines on a commercial aircraft, redundancy allows critical services to continue when one component fails.
Summary
Smoke across the water is far more than an air quality issue. It is a systems issue that touches nearly every aspect of municipal water distribution. Higher water demand, stressed infrastructure, worker safety, treatment challenges, and emergency preparedness all converge during periods of wildfire smoke and extreme weather.
As climate change increases the frequency of simultaneous heat waves, droughts, and large wildfires, Canadian municipalities will need to design water systems that are not merely efficient under normal conditions, but resilient under extraordinary ones. The water utility of the future will increasingly resemble a living organism, constantly sensing, adapting, and responding to environmental stress before service to customers is ever compromised.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin in a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.