There is more to learn about the consequences of intensifying wildfires on community watersheds across Canada, but a large, severe fire followed by heavy precipitation could seriously affect drinking water, says a wildfire research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service. An intense fire can burn through vegetation and soil that serve to absorb and more evenly distribute precipitation or melting snow, and also naturally filter sediment and toxins before the water even reaches a community’s drinking-water source, Francois-Nicolas Robinne said in an interview from Edmonton.