More than 24,500 people are evacuated due to wildfires in Western Canada
Officials in the western Canadian province of Alberta declared a provincial state of emergency on Saturday after more than 24,500 people were forced from their homes due to rampant wildfires.
Alberta Prime Minister Danielle Smith has declared a state of emergency a press conference on Saturday afternoon. “The statement gives the government more powers to respond to extreme situations,” she said, adding that it would give the province access to emergency funds and mobilize additional support.
The fires have become an “unprecedented crisis”, Ms Smith said at a separate press conference on Saturday afternoon. “This is a rapidly evolving situation.”
Unusually warm and dry weather has mixed with high winds, spreading the number of active fires across Alberta to 110 on Saturday, up from 78 on Friday morning. Christie Tucker, a spokeswoman for the county’s wildfire organization, said 36 fires were still classified as “got out of handfrom Saturday evening. She added that nearly 865,000 acres in the province had burned since the beginning of the year.
In northern Alberta, 20 homes, a police station and a water treatment plant have been set on fire in a wildfire in the rural community of Fox Lake. said the authorities on fridaynight.
Stephen Lacroix, the general manager of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, said Saturday night that 10 homes were lost elsewhere in the province. “That number could grow,” he said, but poor visibility during overflights made assessing the damage nearly impossible.
Communities under evacuation orders included Athabasca, Big Lakes, Brazeau, Grande Prairie and Yellowhead Counties and the city of Edson, officials said Saturday afternoon.
In neighboring British Columbia, the same unseasonably warm weather caused the snow pack to quickly melt and move floods and mudslides. A number of flood warnings and other advisories were issued in effect throughout the province early Saturday.
The wildfire service said on Saturday it was responding to Prince George four notable wildfires, that is, those that are highly visible or pose a potential threat to public safety.
In the United States, warm, dry and windy conditions in the Southwest and Southern Plains were expected to spark wildfires again over the weekend, the National Weather Service reports. warned in a weather report. More than three million people in that part of the country were covered fire related warnings or watches early Saturday morning.
Wildfires are increasing in size and intensity in the western United States, and wildfire seasons are lengthening. Recent research has suggested that heat and drought associated with global warming are major reasons for the increase in larger and stronger fires.
In Alberta, early spring is usually the time of greatest risk for wildfires. That’s partly because spring snowmelt leaves a significant amount of dead grass and other potential fire fuel on the land.
The latest wildfires were some of about 395 recorded in Alberta this year.
“That’s significantly more wildfire activity, for this time of year, than we’ve seen at any time in the recent past,” Ms Tucker told reporters on Friday.
On Saturday, Ms. Tucker said an additional 200 firefighters would be deployed “round the clock” across the county over the next three days.
Alberta’s minister of public safety and emergency services, Mike Ellis, said on Saturday that the province “is now focused on protecting human life.”