With nearly six million hectares burned for the moment, the area of Croatia, the season of forest fires in Canada is one of the worst registered in the country, according to an update of the authorities on Friday.
Due to drought and temperatures greater than normal, the country of 40 million inhabitants has experienced an early and extreme season with several active megafos. And the latter devour the land at a rate rarely seen for 40 years.
‘This is one of the highest accumulated areas for this period of the year, behind the 2023 fire season’, said Michael Norton, a spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada.
But unlike the extraordinary summer of 2023, where fire activity did not stabilize ‘and where almost 18 million hectares burned in total,’ we observe this year a more normal fire scheme ‘, he continued.
The intensity of the fires slowed down in June but the country between ‘in what is normally the two most active months of the season’, with conditions conducive to fires in several regions, he warned.
More than 560 fires are currently active in the country. Ottawa called on international aid and 533 firefighters from the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Costa Rica and Mexico are on site.
The intensity of the braziers forced the province of Manitoba (center) to declare the state of emergency for a second time in a few months on July 10 and the authorities indicated that the number of hectares burned this year is ten times higher than the average.
Since this spring, 39,000 natives have been evacuated, the Minister of Aboriginal services said on Friday, adding that First Nations are ‘disproportionately affected’ by fires and are ‘108 times more likely to be evacuated in emergencies’.
Canada, which warms the rest of the planet twice as quickly, faces more and more violent weather events.
Linked to climate change of human origin, the increase in temperatures leads to less snow, shorter and softer winters, and earlier summer conditions that promote fires, according to experts.
/ATS