Thousands of lightning strikes trigger fresh wildfires in western Canada | Canada
New wildfires have broken out in Western Canada and forests continue to burn in Ontario as the country grapples with what premier Mark Carney described as one of the busiest wildfire seasons on record.
Nearly 34,000 lightning strikes last week sparked a series of fires and evacuation orders in southern British Columbia. There were 25 evacuation orders and 90 active wildfires in the state as of Friday morning, and officials said warming and drying conditions could cause the fires to grow.
Hugh Murdoch, incident commander of a cluster of fires near Kimberley, 320 miles (520 km) from Vancouver, said: “The weather forecast is not very positive. There will be no significant help from mother nature for the foreseeable future.”
Wildfires sparked by intense heat and lightning storms attributed to warmer temperatures have burned remote forests across Canada this summer. Smoke billowed from major US east coast and midwestern cities last week.
There were 139 active wildfires in northwestern Ontario, 32 of which were uncontained.
Environment Canada issued a warning about poor air quality in Banff, Alberta, and surrounding areas on Friday but said conditions were expected to improve in most areas over the weekend.
The federal government will mobilize more than 5,300 firefighters and about 300 water bombers, helicopters and evacuation aircraft to fight the fires, Carney said in a statement. He also added that Mexico would send up to 200 firefighters in the coming weeks.
Thousands of people, including some First Nations communities, were evacuated this summer. Approximately 2.95 million hectares (7.29 million acres) of land have been burned this year; This is above the 10-year average of approximately 2.55 million hectares. There are currently more active wildfires in Canada than at any one time in the last two years.
The country’s forest areas constitute 28% of the world’s boreal forests.
Improving weather in the east helped Quebec contain some fires with help from firefighters from neighboring provinces, France and the United States.
Stéphane Caron of Sopfeu, the province’s wildfire prevention agency, said: “The situation in Quebec is under control. We have good weather conditions that will help us. We now have to make sure there are no hot spots on the ground because if there is warm weather and no rain, the fire can come back.”
