2023-08-17 06:54:24
Residents of Yellowknife in Canada leave the city after an evacuation order was given due to the proximity of a forest fire, August 16, 2023. PAT KANE / REUTERS
They have less than two days to leave the premises. The 20,000 residents of Yellowknife, Canada, were ordered on Wednesday evening August 16 to evacuate the main city in the Far North by midday Friday due to the rapid advance of forest fires. .
“Unfortunately, the wildfire situation is turning for the worst with an inferno west of Yellowknife posing a real threat”, said Shane Thompson, Minister of Environment for the Northwest Territories. Nearly 168,000 people have had to be evacuated to Canada since the start of a fire season that is breaking all records and is currently overwhelming the Northwest Territories, a northern region twice the size of mainland France which counts currently 230 active fires.
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Canadian Army deployed
Separated by several hundred kilometers from each other, these villages are “particularly difficult” to evacuate by land, explained earlier this week Mike Westwick, of the territorial fire service, specifying that a contingent of the Canadian army was deployed to facilitate aerial evacuations.
“The city is not facing an immediate danger (…) but without rain the blaze may hit the surroundings of the city this weekend”said Mr. Thompson at a press conference. “If you stay until the weekend you risk putting yourself in danger and endangering others”he added.
Also read: Fires ‘engulf’ roads and force the evacuation of thousands of people in remote towns in Canada’s Far North
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that the armed forces were still deployed to provide assistance to the people of the Northwest Territories. “We will continue to provide you with the necessary resources” et “give all possible assistance”, he wrote on the X network (Ex-Twitter).
The neighboring province of British Columbia, also hard hit by forest fires, recorded a mercury above the 40 ° C mark, a first this year in Canada, the ministry told AFP on Tuesday. of the environment. The town of Lytton saw temperatures hit 41.4C on Monday, two years after it was engulfed in flames in the days following a “heat dome” unprecedented with a historic record of 49.6°C 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.
Read also: Fires in Canada: CO₂ emissions more than double the previous record
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