Thousands of people have been evacuated in recent days due to the progression of numerous forest fires in western Canada.
Evacuations continued Sunday in western Canada, due to the progression of forest fires, bringing the total to nearly 30,000 displaced in a few days, an “unprecedented” situation at this time of year.
On Saturday, the province of Alberta had to declare a state of emergency after ordering the evacuation of some 25,000 people. Early Sunday evening, 107 forest or brush fires were still active in the province, 28 of which were not brought under control by firefighters.
“We had light scattered showers in the south of the province,” said Christie Tucker, spokesperson for the province’s relief, during a press conference Sunday in Edmonton.
“This allowed the firefighters to attack certain areas that they had not been able to approach due to the extreme behavior of the fires”, she added, referring to “good news”.
But this slight lull does not “unfortunately” concern the north of the province where conditions remain very difficult, she further specified.
Reinforcement of Quebec firefighters
In their fight against the fires, the authorities are concentrating on inhabited areas. Drayton Valley, a town of 7,000 people in Alberta about 140 kilometers west of Edmonton, is one of the evacuated communities. In Fox Lake, northern Alberta, a violent fire destroyed 20 homes, a store and a police station. Residents were evacuated by boat and helicopter.
The conditions remain unstable and according to the authorities it is difficult to determine precisely in the immediate future the extent of the damage.
Firefighters from Ontario and Quebec arrived in the province and were deployed to various regions. In recent years, western Canada has been hit repeatedly by extreme weather events, the intensity and frequency of which have increased due to global warming.
In addition to catastrophic flooding, British Columbia was also hit two years ago by the effects of a “historic” heat dome, which claimed hundreds of lives and was followed by major fires.
