2023-08-19 17:59:25
► In Canada, “uncertain and scary times”
“At least 19,000 people have been evacuated from Yellowknife in the last 48 hours”, or almost the entire city, said Friday evening Shane Thompson, Minister of the Environment of the Northwest Territories, of which Yellowknife is the capital. At least 300 firefighters are mobilized to fight the flames, he added, one of the most important devices that this very isolated region of the Canadian Far North has known.
“It was really awful. (…) I have lived there for more than 20 years and this is the first time they ask us to leave. I couldn’t believe it”said Martha Kanatsiak, 59, a resident of Yellowknife who arrived late Friday in Calgary, Alberta, 1,750 km further south. “I feel lost, I have no idea what will happen now”launched for his part Byron Garrison, a 27-year-old construction worker, accompanied by his girlfriend and a friend.
British Columbia, about 600 km west of Calgary, is also facing blazes and had to declare a state of emergency on Friday. The fires particularly affect West Kelowna (more than 30,000 inhabitants). The situation is also critical across Okanagan Lake in Kelowna (pop. 150,000), where the local University of British Columbia campus, home to more than 11,000 students, has been placed under order. evacuation on Friday evening.
Airspace in the region has also been closed to aid the efforts of firefighting aircraft.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with northern evacuees at a reception center on Friday. He mentioned some “uncertain and scary times” while more than a thousand fires are currently ravaging the country from east to west.
The country is experiencing a record-breaking wildfire season this year: 168,000 Canadians have been evacuated across the country and 14 million hectares, roughly the size of Greece, have burned, double the last record dating back to from 1989.
► Tenerife: fires spiral out of control
Strong gusts of wind and higher temperatures have facilitated the spread, still uncontrollable, of a huge forest fire on the island of Tenerife, in the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands, forcing new inhabitants to leave their homes. The huge blaze, which broke out on Tuesday evening in a mountainous part of the northeast of the island, is “most complex” four decades for the archipelago, authorities said.
“The fire is beyond our ability to extinguish it, perhaps not in all sectors, but in a large part of them”explained Pedros Martinez, head of firefighting operations, adding that firefighters were struggling on the ground by the wind and large clouds of smoke.
About 26,000 people forced to flee the fires in Tenerife, according to the emergency services. Evacuations continue as meteorologists warned that the mercury will rise again over the weekend in Tenerife, complicating the efforts of firefighters on the ground.
This forest fire, which burned about 5,000 hectares over a perimeter of 50 kilometers, still mobilized 225 firefighters overnight from Friday to Saturday.
This forest fire occurs between two heat waves on the island, which has many dry areas, which increases the risk of forest fires. Experts say extreme weather events have intensified due to global warming. Heat waves are therefore likely to be more frequent and intense, and their impact more widespread.
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