MONTREAL: Canadian wildfires have burned more than 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) this year, and will continue to rise in the coming weeks, the government showed on Saturday.
The all-time high occurred in 1989, when 7.3 million hectares burned in a full year, according to international statistics from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC).
In all, 4,088 fires have occurred since January, including many that have burned thousands of hectares. Along the way, more than 150,000 people have been displaced.
Considering the number of fires and the number of fires, the authorities have left most of them to burn.
Most of the fires have occurred in forests, far from human settlements — but they still have a negative impact on the environment.
“We find ourselves this year with worse numbers than we expected,” Yan Boulanger, a researcher at Canada’s environment ministry, told AFP.
“What has been crazy is that there has been no rest since the beginning of May,” he said.
As of Saturday, there were 906 fires burning in the country, including 570 that appear to be out of control – without any province.
Critical conditions have changed throughout the country in recent months: In May, at the beginning of the fire season, Alberta’s west was the center of attention, with unprecedented fires.
A few weeks later, Nova Scotia, an Atlantic province with a mild climate, took the baton, followed by Quebec, where a huge fire caused a lot of smoke that covered even parts of the United States.
Since the beginning of July, conditions have changed dramatically in British Columbia, with more than 250 fires started in just three days last week, mostly due to lightning.
Many places in Canada are suffering from severe drought, which is characterized by low rainfall and heat for several months.
The country is hotter than the rest of the world because of its location, and has been experiencing extreme weather events that have increased in intensity and frequency as a result of climate change, scientists say.
The all-time high occurred in 1989, when 7.3 million hectares burned in a full year, according to international statistics from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC).
In all, 4,088 fires have occurred since January, including many that have burned thousands of hectares. Along the way, more than 150,000 people have been displaced.
Considering the number of fires and the number of fires, the authorities have left most of them to burn.
Most of the fires have occurred in forests, far from human settlements — but they still have a negative impact on the environment.
“We find ourselves this year with worse numbers than we expected,” Yan Boulanger, a researcher at Canada’s environment ministry, told AFP.
“What has been crazy is that there has been no rest since the beginning of May,” he said.
As of Saturday, there were 906 fires burning in the country, including 570 that appear to be out of control – without any province.
Critical conditions have changed throughout the country in recent months: In May, at the beginning of the fire season, Alberta’s west was the center of attention, with unprecedented fires.
A few weeks later, Nova Scotia, an Atlantic province with a mild climate, took the baton, followed by Quebec, where a huge fire caused a lot of smoke that covered even parts of the United States.
Since the beginning of July, conditions have changed dramatically in British Columbia, with more than 250 fires started in just three days last week, mostly due to lightning.
Many places in Canada are suffering from severe drought, which is characterized by low rainfall and heat for several months.
The country is hotter than the rest of the world because of its location, and has been experiencing extreme weather events that have increased in intensity and frequency as a result of climate change, scientists say.