emergencies
Numerous forest fires in the Canadian province of Québec
Firefighters during firefighting in a forest area in Canada. photo
© —/Communications Nova Scotia via The Canadian Press/AP/dpa
So far, the forest fires have been raging mainly in western Canada. The province of Québec in the east of the country is now also reporting 140 fires. But there is also reason for optimism.
For weeks, emergency services have been fighting forest fires in large parts of Canada – now the situation has also worsened in the province of Québec. As of early Sunday morning, 140 fires were active in the province in the east of the country. An area of around 183,000 hectares was affected – more than twice the area of Berlin.
Evacuation orders applied to thousands of residents in the region, as reported by the public broadcaster CBC. In the city of Sept-Îles alone, almost 790 kilometers northeast of Montreal, around 10,000 people had to leave their homes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Twitter on Saturday that he would be using members of the Canadian Armed Forces to help fight the fires. According to the authorities, there have already been 388 forest fires in Québec this year – almost twice as many as the average for the past ten years.
In the province of Nova Scotia, south of Québec, where several fires got out of control at the beginning of last week, the situation eased somewhat. According to the authorities, only five of the original ten fires were still active on Saturday. There is reason for cautious optimism, said the province’s Prime Minister, Tim Houston, at a press conference on Saturday – also because of the weather conditions. “When you step outside, you’ll see something beautiful: rain, and hopefully lots of it.”
Canada’s west has also been fighting devastating forest fires for weeks. More than 564 fires have burned more than a million hectares of land in the province of Alberta this year, according to authorities. That corresponds to about two-thirds the size of Schleswig-Holstein. In more than half of the cases, the fires were caused by people, according to the authorities.
In view of climate change, experts warn that the frequency and intensity of forest fires will increase. In the prairie provinces of western Canada, the average temperature has risen by 1.9 degrees Celsius since the mid-20th century, according to the Canadian Department of Environment and Climate Change.
Overview of the authorities Québec report CBC Tweet Trudeau communication authorities Nova Scotia press conference Tim Houston (Youtube) Overview of the authorities Alberta