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With 3.6 hectares already burned, climate change could make 2023 a particularly severe year for wildfires in Canada.
There have been 2,258 wildfires burning so far this year, according to the latest figures from the Interagency Forest Fire Center of Canada late Monday. Among them, 426 were active and 240 were out of control.
Fires are burning across the country, from Alberta in the west to Quebec in the east, involving nine provinces and territories. “Nationally, several provinces and territories are experiencing a severe wildfire season, the effects of which are already widespread,” said a release from Natural Resources Canada.
The norm for a typical summer wildfire season is more than 1,600 such events covering approximately 250,000 hectares.
The current June projections “suggest sustained above-normal levels of fire activity across much of the country throughout the 2023 wildland fire season,” according to projections presented by the government on Monday. Threat of wildfires.
“Year after year, with climate change, we’re seeing more and more wildfires in places that don’t normally occur,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa on Monday.
More than 120,000 Canadians have been displaced by wildfires this year, and more than 25,000 are under evacuation orders so far.
“While this is not yet Canada’s worst fire season, if this trajectory continues, it will likely become Canada’s worst fire season,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said at the briefing.
Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair agreed, as he said, “The images we’ve seen so far this season are some of the worst that Canada has ever seen.”
“Our modeling suggests this could be a particularly severe wildfire season throughout the summer,” Trudeau added.
He said emergency preparedness can address the challenges posed by the unusually severe conditions that began in May, but contingency plans include additional assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces.
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