2023-05-08 22:08:59
A fine rain has been falling since Sunday May 7 on Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, and on the south of the province. “It’s a welcome respite, says Josée St-Onge, spokesperson for the Alberta Firefighting Agency, which enabled our approximately 700 mobilized firefighters to attack certain areas that they had not been able to approach due to the extreme behavior of the fires. » But, she adds, it is a “localized respite, which does not concern the north of the territory and its boreal forest, and above all temporary because temperatures are expected to rise within a few days”.
At midday on Monday, 100 forest or brush fires were still active, including 28 declared out of control by the fire services, particularly in the center and north-west of the province. “It will take weeks or even months to completely stabilize the situation”, warns Josée St-Onge. In total, local authorities estimate that 375,000 hectares have already gone up in smoke, while the neighboring provinces of the Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Saskatchewan are in turn facing blazes.
Faced with this “unprecedented situation”, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Conservative Party) declared a provincial state of emergency on Saturday to mobilize additional resources and release emergency funds. After receiving initial reinforcements in human resources – 80 firefighters from Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia are preparing to go into action – the Alberta leader contacted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday to ask for the intervention of the Canadian armed forces . The latter would have assured him that the “Canada would be there to support Alberta in any way possible.”
“More and more smoke”
Since the start of the spread of the fires on May 5, 29,000 people have been evacuated in more than twenty of the most threatened localities. From the first evening, the 7,000 residents of Drayton Valley, some 140 kilometers west of Edmonton, were called to leave their homes immediately. Lisa Dack, a resident quoted by the public network Radio Canada, said that she stormed out of her house in the middle of the night with her daughter and their cat. “All you could see was more and more smoke. So we took what we could and left the rest behind. »
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