The gigantic fires in Canada forced the evacuation of the inhabitants of a city in the north of the country and the declaration of a state of emergency in the British Columbia region, the most affected with more than 370 fires.
“The situation is unpredictable right now and difficult days lie ahead of us,” David Eby, the premier of the state of British Columbia, which declared a state of emergency in his region, said late Friday.
According to the AFP news agency, the 20,000 inhabitants of Yellowknife, one of the main cities in the far north of Canada, had until last night to leave that town, which is very isolated.
“I feel lost, I have no idea what will happen from now on,” Byron Garrison, 27, a construction worker who arrived at Calgary airport from Yellowknife with his girlfriend, told AFP. and a friend.
Evacuees from the northern territories are checked in at an airport lounge and then relocated to hotels.
“The government told us we have to go. So, my wife and I took some clothes and Rosy (her dog),” said Richard Manubag, 53, a Yellowknife cafe clerk who hoped to spend only “three or four days” in Calgary, located 1,700 kilometers south of his town.
“I’m sad. (…) I think about everything I have in my house, I don’t know what will happen,” he added.
Yellowknife has been practically empty and only soldiers mobilized by the fires remain on its streets, Chad Blewett, an airplane pilot who participated in the evacuations, explained to the CBC television network.
Most of the people in the affected city left by road, according to authorities.
“We are all going to get out of this incredibly difficult summer together,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was with several evacuees on Friday night at a shelter in Edmonton, about 1,000 kilometers from Yellowknife.
Currently, more than 1,000 fires are burning in Canada, more than 370 of them in British Columbia and more than 230 in the state of Northwest Territories.
In the height of boreal summer, the country is being ravaged by an impressive wave of fires, which caused the evacuation of 168,000 citizens and burned up to 14 million hectares, the equivalent of the surface of Greece.
Some 15,000 Northwest Territories had to be evacuated.
The situation is critical in towns like Kelowna, with 150,000 inhabitants, or West Kelowna, with 30,000, located in the Okanagan Lake area.
The West Kelowna fire chief acknowledged Friday that the night before had been “probably one of the toughest of his career.”
“We are facing the equivalent of 100 years of fires, all of them concentrated in one night,” Jason Brolund told the media.
“We made every effort to reduce the impact of the blazes. But in the end, Mother Nature was too strong,” said Loyal Wooldridge, a local Kelowna leader.
Canada has suffered in recent years a succession of extreme weather events, the intensity and frequency of which is exacerbated by climate change.
Source: Ambito
