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Canada currently has 416 active fires, 203 of which are considered out of control. The country had never seen such a dizzying disappearance of millions of hectares of forests as in the first half of 2023. Authorities and climatologists say that the fires will continue through the summer (which starts on the 21st in the northern hemisphere) and that they could get worse.
Canada currently has 416 active fires, 203 of which are considered out of control. The country had never seen such a dizzying disappearance of millions of hectares of forests as in the first half of 2023. Authorities and climatologists say that the fires will continue through the summer (which starts on the 21st in the northern hemisphere) and that they could get worse.
Canada is one of the countries that is already experiencing an above-average increase in temperature, which the international community had promised to combat. The fires that have been plaguing the country for weeks are the result of the effects of climate change, a situation that climate scientists have been warning about for years.
Since the beginning of the year, 4.6 million hectares have already been burned in Canadian territory, a total well above the average of recent decades.
The west of the country has been hit particularly hard. After a few days of truce, the fires intensified in the province of Alberta, where on Friday night (9) the approximately 8,400 residents of the city of Edson were forced to leave their homes for the second time since May.
“The fire is so out of control that some forest crews have had to retreat”, said Luc Mercier, managing director of Yellowhead County, where Edson is located. “They can’t fight this fire.”
“All you think about is saving yourself”
Hayley Waites left Edson with her children on Friday night, along with a “huge group of people”. “When you panic to resolve the situation, all you think about is saving yourself,” she told the channel. CBC. “But as soon as we drove off, we said to ourselves, what if my house isn’t there when I get back?”
In British Columbia, the town of Tumbler Ridge, with a population of 2,400 people, was practically emptied when the fire approached a few kilometers from the locality.
In Quebec, the Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, declared on Saturday morning (10) that the situation in the center and northwest of the province remains difficult, with several municipalities still under threat. Fire that hits the northeast is considered “stable”.
“It’s the first time in the history of Quebec that we’ve fought so many fires, that we’ve removed so many people,” he said. “We are going to have a fight against fires that we believe will last the whole summer,” he added.
Nearly 14,000 people are still under evacuation orders in Quebec, according to the minister.
(With information from AFP)
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