“We fought the equivalent of 100 years of fires in one night”: Canada was fighting on several fronts Friday against giant fires which forced the authorities to order the evacuation of an entire city in the Far North, and threatened a region of British Columbia 2,000 km away.
It’s a real race against time that has begun in Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, where some 20,000 inhabitants had until noon Friday to leave. A particularly complicated mass evacuation because the region is isolated, and the nearest reception center is more than a thousand kilometers away.
In West Kelowna, British Columbia, about 400 km from Vancouver, firefighters and authorities said they had spent an “extremely difficult” night.
By road or by air, the evacuation of Yellowknife “is going extremely well,” Civil Protection Minister Harjit Sajjan said at a press conference. But “the situation remains very difficult,” said Defense Minister Bill Blair.
Bags on their backs and in their hands, residents had formed long lines on Thursday to try to get places on board emergency evacuation flights while the smoke from the forest fires was already hanging over the city.
Arlene Talbot, a resident of Yellowknife, explained to the CBC channel that she paid 1,000 Canadian dollars (678 euros) for a one-way ticket on a commercial flight to Edmonton.
“I’m mentally drained, I think most people are because the situation has been extremely worrying,” she said.
Frank Higgins, who also lives in Yellowknife, told Canadian public television that he was preparing to drive very long hours, and that he hit the road without really knowing where to go. “Maybe in Saskatchewan,” he said, pouring gas into his vehicle.
The army was mobilized to help with the evacuation. About 1,500 residents have already left the area by air and hundreds more by land, authorities said, with twice as many flights scheduled for Friday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is due to go to an evacuation center in Edmonton, about 1,000 km from Yellowknife, Friday evening, his office announced in the afternoon.
In West Kelowna (more than 30,000 inhabitants), in British Columbia, “a significant number” of houses burned, according to the authorities, who called on the population to be on the alert and to be ready to leave in case emergency. Some areas have already been ordered to evacuate.
A state of emergency was also declared across Lake Okanagan in Kelowna (about 150,000 people), and airspace in the area was closed “to aid aerial firefighting efforts.” , according to a press release.
Thursday to Friday night was “probably one of the toughest nights of my career,” West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Brolund said.
“We fought 100 years worth of fires, all in one night,” he told reporters.
“Every effort was made to mitigate the impact of the fire. But in the end, Mother Nature was too strong,” acknowledged Kelowna local official Loyal Wooldridge. And “unfortunately, we are not out of the woods. Last night could well be a taste of what awaits us in the days to come”.
The winds are indeed even stronger than the day before, according to Jason Brolund.
In Yellowknife too, it was feared that the winds would not work in favor of the firefighters and that the fire would reach the city this weekend.
Canada has faced extreme weather events in recent years, the intensity and frequency of which are increased by global warming, and this year is experiencing a record-breaking wildfire season.
More than a thousand fires are currently ravaging the country from east to west, including more than 230 in the Northwest Territories and more than 370 in British Columbia.
Since the start of Canada’s wildfire season, 168,000 Canadians have been evacuated across the country and 14 million hectares – about the size of Greece – have burned, double the last record from 1989.
18/08/2023 23:19:02 – Kelowna (Canada) (AFP) © 2023 AFP
