More than 17,000 people are being evacuated on Wednesday in Manitoba, in downtown Canada, when this province is experiencing one of its worst beginning of the forest fire season.
With global warming, Canada is increasingly affected by extreme climatic events, especially large -scale fires. In 2023, the country had the worst fire season in its history.
“This is the most important evacuation operation in Manitoba in recent memory,” said Province Prime Minister Wab Kinew, at a press conference, declare the state of emergency throughout the region.
5,000 inhabitants are preparing to flee from the city of Flin Flon
Military aviation had to deploy “imminent” media to help the inhabitants of the most remote areas to evacuate, according to Wab Kinew.
The evacuations refer in particular to the city of Flin Flon, where 5,000 inhabitants were ordered to flee at any time while the flames approach the Mining City.
Sheryl Matheson had to leave the city of Sherridon, surrounded by flames, northeast of Flin Flon.
“It’s overwhelming,” says this owner of a fishing pavilion. “There was a lot of smoke. You could see the fires of four or five kilometers and moved quickly.”
“The flames amounted to more than 30 meters high and firefighters could not get close enough to the fire to do anything,” he explains.
Elsaida Alert, who was evacuated by Flin Flon, told the CBC public channel “extremely anxious.”
“We have gathered all our essential things, our important documents, our drugs, the things that our animals will need,” he said.
134 active lights in several provinces
The inhabitants of several other remote cities and indigenous communities that evacuate have also been ordered. Most of them must be transferred to Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba.
Currently, Canada records 134 active fires in several provinces, including Manitoba, but also Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“For the first time, it is not a fire in a single region. We have fires in all regions. This is a proof of climate change that we will have to adapt,” said Manitoba Prime Minister Wab Kinew. Twenty -two forest fires are active in their province.
Almost 200,000 hectares of forests were affected in the last month, triple the total annual average in this region.
“Manitoba has the greatest fire activity in Canada since the beginning of the year,” said Kirstin Hayward, the fire fighting service.
According to the forecasts of the Canadian authorities, the forest fire season could be “above normal” in the center and western Canada in June and July, and “well above the average” in August, especially due to the serious or extreme drought that continues to be reached in several places.
Source: BFM TV
