2023-08-16 03:23:00
Part of the Canadian Far North is evacuated by military planes because of the threat of forest fires, which “engulf” roads.
By IM with AFP Canada is facing unprecedented wildfires this summer. © JESSE LARRIVIERE / Forest Protection Society / AFP Published on 08/16/2023 at 03:23
Air evacuations were still underway Tuesday, August 15 in remote communities in Canada’s Far North, in the face of the threat of forest fires which “engulfed” roads, pushing the Northwest Territories to declare a state of emergency. Nearly 168,000 people have had to be evacuated in Canada since the start of a record-breaking fire season.
In the Northwest Territories, which has more than 230 active fires, about 15% of the population is currently evacuated, or more than 6,000 people, according to authorities. Separated by several hundred kilometers from each other, these villages are “particularly difficult” to evacuate by land, explains Mike Westwick, of the territorial fire department, adding that a contingent of 120 soldiers is deployed Tuesday to facilitate air evacuations .
“The highway was engulfed in flames”
Living in a municipality of some 2,250 people currently under evacuation orders, Jordan Evoy, 28, hoped to leave his home by car to take refuge in Alberta, a neighboring province, but a major forest fire forced him to turn back on Monday. and flee by military aircraft. “I couldn’t see anything in front of me (…) There was no longer a network, so no way of knowing where I was, it was even more distressing,” he explains to AFP.
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Jordan Evoy worried that his truck’s tires would “melt” in the heat. “The highway was engulfed in flames, it was the scariest moment of my life,” he commented.
After the territorial capital Yellowknife Monday evening, threatened by a blaze 20km from its walls, it was the turn of the authorities of the Northwest Territories (NWT) to declare a state of emergency Tuesday evening. The situation “is changing rapidly and the needs on the ground are changing quickly,” the government said in a statement.
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“We are in a crisis situation and our government is using all the tools at its disposal,” said Territorial Environment Minister Shane Thompson, noting that this allows her to “access resources and deploy them”. “I am heartbroken thinking of the people of the NWT struggling with devastating forest fires,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the X network (ex-Twitter).
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The neighboring province of British Columbia, also hard hit by forest fires, recorded a mercury above the 40 degrees Celsius mark, a first this year in Canada, the ministry told AFP on Tuesday. of the environment. The town of Lytton saw the temperature reach 41.4 degrees on Monday, two years after it was ravaged by flames in the days following an unprecedented “heat dome” with an all-time high of 49.6 degrees for the country.
Canada, which due to its geographical location is warming faster than the rest of the planet, has been confronted in recent years with extreme weather events whose intensity and frequency have been increased by global warming.
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