• Canada in flames, record heat fuels fires

  • Record heat in Canada: dozens of emergency calls for sudden deaths

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03 July 2021

British Columbia's chief medical examiner Lisa Lapointe said there were 719 sudden and unexpected deaths in the province of Western Canada during this week of record heat that hit the country.

An unprecedented figure, he added, explaining that it is three times higher than the average of deaths over this period, according to the Toronto Star.

Lapointe then specified that extreme weather conditions are considered a determining factor in the increase in deaths and that the figure is set to rise.

Not only. More than 130 massive forest fires, mostly triggered by lightning, are ravaging western Canada. The federal government intends to send military aircraft to help firefighters contain the flames.

In the past two days, the number of lightning strikes has almost increased tenfold compared to the same period last year. This phenomenon, some meteorologists explain to Reuters, is partly due to the record heat wave and is at the origin of the fires that are putting a strain on British Columbia in particular. In this province and in western Alberta between 3 pm on Wednesday and 6 am on Thursday, over 710,000 lightning strikes were detected, 600,000 of which did not hit the earth. This is an "unbelievable" number for Canada, says Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist at the Vaisala company. A number, added Vagasky, which corresponds to 5% of all lightning strikes that the country normally registers within a year.