Tens of thousands of people had to be evacuated to northern and western Canada, where firefighters continued Saturday, August 19, to fight fires of rare intensity, which will leave “a lasting scar”.
“It’s the first time something like this, of this magnitude, has happened in the region,” 82-year-old Tony Whitford said on Saturday. He and his family were evacuated Thursday from Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories surrounded by fires for several days, to the city of Calgary in Alberta, some 1,750 km to the south.
At least 19,000 people have been evacuated from Yellowknife in the past 48 hours, almost the entire city, Shane Thompson, Minister of Environment for the Northwest Territories, said Friday evening. 15,000 people fled by road, 3,800 were evacuated by air, mainly to Calgary, while at least 300 firefighters were mobilized to fight the flames, he added, one of the most important devices that this very isolated region of the Canadian Far North has known.
“It was really awful. I couldn’t believe it,” said Martha Kanatsiak, 59, a Yellowknife resident for more than 20 years who arrived in Calgary late Friday. “I’m fine, but I’m sad, depressed and worried. I’ve never seen anything like it,” added the Inuit retiree, who only brought two small bags with her. “I hope it will be over soon because it’s very hard.”
The City of Calgary has made 495 hotel rooms available for evacuees, officials said.
Refugees from the Far North were received in a small room to be registered and distributed to hotels. Fruit, biscuits and water were made available to them.
The fires are located Saturday 15 km from Yellowknife but winds from the northwest could push the flames near the city limits, according to Canadian authorities.
British Columbia, also facing blazes, had to declare a state of emergency on Friday.
Thick smoke enveloped the city of Kelowna, nearly 600 km west of Calgary, which has about 150,000 inhabitants. The local University of British Columbia campus, home to more than 11,000 students, was placed under evacuation orders on Friday evening and airspace in the area was closed to aid the planes’ efforts. of fire fighting.
The situation is also critical on the other side of Lake Okanagan, in West Kelowna (population over 30,000) where “a significant number” of houses have burned down, according to authorities.
The luxury hotel Lake Okanagan Resort, which in the past has hosted senior politicians such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is among the buildings ravaged by the flames, as shown by images circulating in the local press.
“Yesterday was one of the toughest firefighting days our departments have ever seen,” West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Brolund said at a press conference on Saturday. “It is certain that this event will leave a lasting scar,” he added.
Nearly 15,000 people have been placed under evacuation orders across British Columbia, and some 20,000 people must be ready to evacuate at any time, said Bowinn Ma, Minister in charge of crisis management for Province.
Heavy smoke on Saturday reduced visibility, making firefighter operations even more complex, while further evacuation orders and alerts were expected depending on the progress of the fires, Colombia’s fire department said. -Briton on X (ex-Twitter).
Several thousand evacuations have also taken place in the state of Washington in the United States, neighboring British Columbia, where a fire broke out on Friday near the city of Spokane, according to local press. Authorities have confirmed one death.
Canada has been confronted in recent years with extreme weather events whose intensity and frequency are increased by global warming.
The country is experiencing a record-breaking wildfire season this year: 14 million hectares, roughly the size of Greece, have burned, double the last record from 1989.
