“Unprecedented crisis” – Numerous wildfires in Canada

A state of emergency has been declared due to the many forest fires in the Canadian province of Alberta. The provincial premier, Danielle Smith, announced this on Twitter on Saturday evening (local time). All resources must be deployed to combat the “unprecedented crisis”.

Nearly 25,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, according to authorities. 109 fires are active and spreading rapidly due to the heat and drought – 33 of them are out of control. Nearly 122,000 hectares of land had burned – an area almost half the size of the Saarland.

Christie Tucker of the Alberta Wildfire Fire Protection Agency said, according to broadcaster CBC, that otherwise an average of 800 acres would have burned this time of year. Strong winds and high temperatures are also expected. The temperature has been 10 to 15 degrees above normal for quite some time. This means that the vegetation is very dry and highly flammable.

Some fires are only 12 hectares in size, others stretch over thousands of hectares. The high temperatures, the wind and the drought favored the spread of the fires. One hectare is equal to 10,000 square meters.

Authorities say there have been more than 360 fires since January. Considering that May had only just begun, this was an exceptionally high number of fires. (sda/dpa)