“We finally have the impression of moving forward”: facing the fires, firefighters helped by the rain in Western Canada

2023-08-22 04:52:10

Never had the rain been so expected. The weather of the past few hours on Monday brought some hope to firefighters in Western Canada who are battling extreme fires that threaten several cities and have forced thousands of residents to evacuate. “We finally feel like we’re moving forward, rather than backwards,” West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Brolund said, bringing a note of optimism on Sunday for the first time.

“It’s a frightening and overwhelming time,” admitted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking of “scenes of horror”. “From coast to coast, Canadians are watching in horror as the scenes of apocalyptic devastation and fires unfold,” he added hours before a crisis meeting to discuss the fire issue.

All eyes are on the westernmost province of the country, British Columbia, in a state of emergency and which concentrates more than 380 forest fires, including 14 megafires and 157 uncontrolled, according to local authorities. Over the weekend, two fires that threaten large parts of the Okanagan Valley, including the cities of Kelowna and neighboring West Kelowna, coalesced. The blaze resulting from this merger, located in the Shuswap region 500 km northeast of Vancouver, now extends over more than 41,000 hectares, four times the area of ​​Paris.

Thousands of evacuations

Temperatures are indeed cooler on Monday and a little rain is expected from Tuesday. However, “there are still difficult days ahead”, authorities have warned and the thick smoke continues to suffocate the region. Thousands of residents are called to evacuate as the flames spread.

In Canada’s Far North, firefighting crews are also still hard at work containing a massive blaze that threatened the capital of the Northwest Territories. They were helped in their efforts by a bit of rain over the weekend. Two-thirds of the territory’s population remains displaced, including residents of Yellowknife, now a ghost town, except for emergency personnel who stayed behind to build firewalls.

“With a little help from the weather over the past few days and a lot of good firefighting efforts, we have been able to contain this situation for the time being,” said local wildfire officer Mike Westwick.

14 million hectares burned

Canada has been confronted in recent years with extreme weather events, the intensity and frequency of which have been increased by climate change. The country is thus experiencing a record-breaking forest fire season this year: 14 million hectares – approximately the area of ​​Greece – have burned, double the last record dating from 1989.

The season has started in Alberta which, in May, had to declare a state of emergency due to an unprecedented situation. A few weeks later, Nova Scotia, an Atlantic province with a very mild climate, and especially Quebec were in turn caught in megafires before it was the turn of the west and north of the country to ignite. It is mainly the boreal forest that goes up in smoke, far from inhabited areas. But with serious consequences for the environment.