With the new evacuations organized on Sunday, May 7, the number of people displaced by the ongoing wildfires in western Canada has now reached 30,000. An "unprecedented" situation at this time of year. On Saturday May 6, 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," Christie Tucker, the province's relief spokesperson, said at a Sunday news conference in Edmonton. "It allowed the firefighters to attack some areas that they hadn't been able to approach due to the extreme behavior of the fires," she added, referring to "good news." But this slight lull "unfortunately" does not concern the north of the province where conditions remain very difficult, she further specified.
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 among the evacuated communities. In Fox Lake, northern Alberta, a massive fire engulfed 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 the precise extent of the damage immediately. "In some cases, the smoke and current conditions prevent us from fully assessing property losses," said Colin Blair of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.
This Canadian province, one of the largest oil producers in the world, "had a hot and dry spring and with so many small woods, it only takes a few sparks to start some really scary fires," the Prime Minister said on Saturday. from the province, Danielle Smith.
Two out-of-control wildfires in neighboring British Columbia have also prompted some people to flee their homes, and authorities have warned they expect strong winds to push the blazes larger in the coming days. 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 large fires.
