The blazes subsided on Canada’s Atlantic coast, but the forests ignited again in the west. Fires that were thought to be extinguished are starting again: the inhabitants of Edson, a town of 8,400 people located 200 kilometers from Edmonton, provincial capital of Alberta, had to leave their homes on Saturday June 10, for the second time in a few weeks, the flames having crossed the McLeod River and in their path burned the firebreaks intended to protect the residents.
Since the first fires that started early in May, Canada has not stopped burning. On June 13, the fire map remained dotted with red: 449 fires were still active from coast to coast, eleven more than the day before, including 226 declared ” out of control “. Nearly five million hectares have already gone up in smoke; this is not much (0.5%) in view of the vastness of its territory but it is already double the average recorded by the country over the last decade, even though summer, conducive to fires, n hasn’t started yet. Three provinces remain to this day on a war footing: Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia.
Since the thirteen Canadian provinces and territories are each responsible for protecting forests and fighting fires, no federal organization is able to list the exhaustive number of firefighters currently mobilized in the field, or even the equipment deployed; the country has its own fifty-five Canadair-type tanker planes, including fifteen for Quebec alone.
But the number of fires, their scale and severity are straining local resources; Canada is struggling to cope, alone, with these fires which are multiplying, while “the fire season could be particularly severe throughout the summer”, has already warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
1,150 foreign firefighters called to the rescue
The Canadian Interagency Wildfire Center (CIFFC) coordinates nationally the sharing and assignment of local and foreign firefighters. “When a province needs help, we look to see if resources are available elsewhere in the country to meet their needs.explains Jennifer Kamau, communications officer at CIFFC. But today the situation is such that we have only been able to move 152 Canadian firefighters from one territory to another”. It is therefore foreign reinforcements that come to compensate for the shortage. A total of 1,150 firefighters are or will be called to the rescue. In mid-June, more than 700 international firefighters were already working on Canadian soil, from the United States (266), Australia (218), South Africa (200) and New Zealand ( 40). Most were deployed in Alberta.
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