Canada’s British Columbia still battling massive forest fires

ANKARA

British Columbia province in western Canada is still battling massive forest fires caused by increasing temperatures.

As many as 269 fires are still active in the state, according to a fire map published by the provincial administration.

While 61 of them were brought under full control, 38 of them are just rounded up to be extinguished.

A total of 170 forest fires are still continuing, of which 12 broke out in the last two days, and 30 of them pose a threat to public security.

At least 3,100 firefighters are taking part in the fight against these fires while helicopters and firefighter planes are trying to extinguish the blazes in places far from human access, according to the local press.

Wildfires appear to be concentrated in the central and southern parts of the province far from the ocean, especially along the Alberta provincial border.

6.4M acres of land burned

Since the beginning of this year, a total of 1,488 wildfires have broken out in the province, which means that the number of forest fires seen in 2021 so far has already exceeded the ones in 2018.

The fires, which have started in April, have burned 6.4 million acres of land.

That means more than 80% of the past 10-year average in the state has been destroyed in fires.

In June, a wildfire that broke consecutive records with temperatures as high as 49 degrees completely destroyed a small town called Lytton, northeast of Vancouver in southwestern Canada.

Of the fires, 55.6% were forest fires and 32% were caused by human intervention, while the cause of 12.4% is unknown.

*Writing by Merve Berker