Wildfire smoke: Skies are slowly clearing in the eastern US, but Canada continues to burn
When Liz Gouari made plans to move from Africa to join her husband in a rural area of northern Quebec, he promised her that Canada was a peaceful country.
But on Wednesday, the pair were among dozens of people who sat in stunned disbelief at an evacuation center after the entire town they lived in was forced to flee a raging bushfire.
The fire swept through the forest and slammed into their town, Chibougamau, one of countless Canadian communities hit by an extraordinary outbreak of wildfires whose smoke has blotted the skies across large parts of North America and ingested millions of people. forced because of the dangerous air quality.
Ms. Gouari and her husband, Rey Steve Mabiala, grew up in the Republic of Congo and said they were familiar with all kinds of evacuations – he had once fled fighting by hiding in a tropical forest – and how floods and droughts were exacerbated by climate change caused major displacements on the continent.
“There are a lot of climate refugees at home in Africa, but I never thought I would become one in Canada,” said Mr Mabiala, 42, who arrived in Canada in 2018 and was joined last month by Ms Gouari, 39, after he became a permanent resident and sponsored her entry into the country.
With three months left in Canada’s wildfire season, fires already burned more than 10 times the hectares of land by this time last year. The size and intensity of the fires are believed to be related to dryness and heat caused by a changing climate.
Wildfires are raging in all provinces and territories of Canada except Prince Edward Island and Nunavut, a northern area above the tree line where temperatures are too low for trees to survive.
“My wife keeps saying to me, ‘But how could this have happened? You always promised me Canada was a peaceful country, but now we’re starting to run like we’re back home,'” Mr Mabiala said, looking at his wife, who stared blankly at him and could only mumble that she was shocked.”
The outbreak has affected not only western provinces traditionally prone to wildfires, but also eastern provinces such as Quebec, where so many fires rarely burn at once and whose residents have little experience evacuating such fires.
Of the more than 400 fires now burning in Canada, more than a third are in Quebec, which has already recorded its worst wildfire season on record.
“It’s really been an exceptional year,” said Josée Poitras, a spokeswoman for Quebec’s wildfire prevention agency.
As even extremely cold areas in Canada warm, rising temperatures and a “vapor pressure deficit,” or lack of moisture in the air, are causing trees to become drier, says Tanzina Mohsin, a professor of physical and environmental sciences at the University of Toronto.
“We are facing a number of unprecedented events, including droughts, accelerated fires and heat waves, and there will be more over time, especially wildfires,” Ms Mohsin said.
The wildfires in Quebec were sparked last week by a single lightning strike near Val-d’Or, a town about 200 miles southwest of Chibougamau, following an unusually dry spring. warnings from people who reported seeing smoke, resulting in more than a hundred fires, which have gradually increased.
In Chibougamau — a town of 7,500 about 700 miles north of Montreal by road — city officials issued an evacuation order late Tuesday, just hours after saying a firewall would contain the advancing blaze. But with the fires just 15 miles away and speeding up, residents jumped into vehicles and began heading south.
Many arrived in Roberval, a town about 150 miles southeast of Chibougamau. A drive that usually takes a few hours took two to three times longer as a caravan of cars and trailers moved slowly down the highway in the middle of the night.
“I have lived in Chibougamau for more than 40 years and I have never experienced a situation like this,” said Francis Côté, 71, who stayed with other evacuees at a sports center in Roberval. “It’s the first time I’ve had to evacuate because of a forest fire.”
It was the first time all of Chibougamau had to evacuate because of wildfires, although residents in parts of the city were forced to leave in 2005.
In the large sports center where evacuees were hiding, people sat and slept on cots, with a few suitcases next to them. Some brought their pets.
Authorities had blocked all roads into Chibougamau and other areas threatened by the wildfires, and it was unclear when residents would be allowed to return or what they would find once they did.
Oddly enough, as smoke from the wildfires drifted over the east coast of the United States, there was no smell or visible smoke in Roberval and other areas just south of Chibougamau on Thursday.
A combination of factors, firefighters said, laid the groundwork for the spread of wildfires in the Chibougamau area: freezing rain that weighed down trees and littered the forest floor with broken branches that became tinder; and unusually dry soil as snow melted earlier than usual and little rain fell in the spring.
Built on mining and logging, Chibougamau is one of the few bold names on maps of Quebec’s vast, sparsely populated northern regions. For many in Quebec, it is a mysterious place associated with remoteness and extreme cold.
But Chibougamau is also affected by the effects of global warming. Longtime residents said the evacuation followed years of change in their community.
Since retiring as a miner ten years ago, Mr. Côté an outdoor skating rink in Chibougamau. Fewer months with temperatures below freezing shortened the skating seasonand erratic temperatures have made it more difficult to maintain a clean, smooth ice surface.
“This year there was a thaw in January,” he said. “It melted, I had to start over, and it took me a week to recreate the ice cream.”
“We can really see that it’s global warming that’s affecting us more and more,” added Mr. Come on. “Every year it gets worse.”
When Guy Boisvert, 79, moved to Chibougamau as a child, a white fog covered much of the town in winter as temperatures regularly dropped to minus 45 Fahrenheit. Winters were long and May brought heavy showers, making wildfires rare and manageable.
“Sometimes we would see a small forest fire and it would last a day or two,” Mr. Boisvert said.
His wife, Shirley Gallon, 75, who has lived in Chibougamau for 53 years, added: “We never thought we would have to evacuate from Chibougamau.”
More recently, warming temperatures have extended the golf season in Chibougamau, said Jonathan Mattson, 42, a city councilman and avid golfer.
A few years ago, the golf season started a full month early, in mid-April. Normally the golf course feels wet.
“But this year when I ran the track it was crispy – very, very dry,” said Mr. Mattson.
But perhaps most surprised were newcomers to Chibougamau, such as Mr. Mabiala, from the Republic of Congo, who came to work in the logging industry.
Two women from the Philippines, Ruth Cabrera and Anna Huerte, said they were evacuated from their homes following flooding and volcanic eruptions.
A familiar fear – of being at the mercy of natural forces beyond their control – returned as the wildfires approached Chibougamau, turning the sky red and yellow.
Ms. Cabrera, 49, who works at a McDonald’s in Chibougamau, and Ms. Huerte, 38, who works in the logging industry, said they didn’t realize how climate change could upend lives in Canada.
The two women said their relatives in the Philippines were surprised at their evacuation.
“They asked, ‘Oh, does such a thing exist in Canada?’ said Mrs. Cabrera.