(Reuters) – Canadian fire crews are currently battling to prevent wildfires from reaching the northern city of Yellowknife, where all 20,000 residents are being evacuated by car and plane after an evacuation order was declared.
Thick smoke has blanketed the capital of the vast and sparsely populated Northwest Territories, as water bombers fly low over Yellowknife. Officials have stated that if there is no rain, the fire, which is 16 km (10 miles) northeast of the city, could reach the outskirts by Saturday.
The territorial fire service said in a statement on Facebook, “Very tough days ahead – with two days of northwest to west-northwest winds on Friday and Saturday, which would push fire towards Yellowknife.”
Today, there are five evacuation flights planned to transport residents to the neighboring province of Alberta. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to convene a meeting of the Incident Response Group later in the day to discuss the fires. This group is made up of senior officials and ministers and meets in times of crisis.
This year’s wildfire season in Canada is the worst on record, with over 1,000 active fires currently burning across the country, which includes 265 in the Northwest Territories. Experts believe that climate change has worsened the wildfire problem.
The evacuation order was issued late on Wednesday to allow residents enough time to leave before the weather deteriorated. “The urgency is, fire changes drastically … the conditions are in our favor right now but that will change on Saturday. We’re going to see winds change which are going to have an impact,” said Shane Thompson, the territorial environment minister.
Approximately 65% of the Territories’ population of 46,000 people will be evacuated in total, according to Thompson. The Northwest Territories have limited infrastructure, and there is only one two-lane road out of Yellowknife to the province of Alberta.
Alberta has established three official evacuee reception centers for those who are leaving by road, but the closest center is over 1,100 km from Yellowknife. The deadline for residents to leave Yellowknife is noon local time on Friday.
Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty has stated that special teams are currently clear-cutting trees near the city to prevent flames from spreading. They also plan to use fire retardant and ensure that sprinkler systems are functioning, while simultaneously focusing on creating fire breaks to impede the fire’s progress.
Following public outrage on social media about soaring prices, Canada’s two largest carriers have announced that they are adding flights from Yellowknife and capping fares.
Some of the evacuees will be flown to Calgary, Alberta, where accommodation and meals for up to 5,000 people have been prepared, according to Iain Bushell, Calgary’s emergency management director.
So far, over 134,000 square km (52,000 square miles) of land in Canada have been affected by wildfires this season, more than six times the 10-year average. Nearly 200,000 people have been forced to evacuate at some point.
According to a social media post by the Northwest Territories fire service, a fire that had previously posed a threat to Hay River, a community of around 3,000 people further south on Great Slave Lake, has stalled overnight.
The ongoing fires have also impacted industrial and energy production. Diamond producer De Beers has stated that its Gahcho Kue mine, located 280 km northeast of Yellowknife, is still operating, although some employees from surrounding communities have been evacuated.
In 2016, a massive fire destroyed 10% of the structures in Fort McMurray, a northern energy-producing city in Alberta, resulting in the evacuation of 90,000 residents and disrupting over a million barrels per day of oil output.
In June 2021, 90% of the structures in the village of Lytton, British Columbia, were destroyed following record-breaking high temperatures in Canada.
(Additional reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa, Divya Rajagopal in Toronto, and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Devika Syamnath, David Gregorio, and Josie Kao)
Credit: The Star : News Feed
