Canada: ravaged by fires, British Columbia fears new fires start
There have been many fire starts in British Columbia recently.
AFP - -
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Western Canada is already planning new evacuations.
Nearly a thousand people have had to leave their homes in British Columbia where so far 177 fires have been recorded, including 70 new ones in the last 24 hours alone.
The emergency services fear additional fires will start this weekend.
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It is especially in the northeast of Vancouver that the fire starts are concentrated.
About fifty are considered "
out of control
".
The British Columbia authorities' website leaves no doubt about the origin of these fires: the very violent thunderstorms of recent days.
The region has been struck by lightning hundreds of thousands of times, far more than normal, say meteorologists, when the area only needs a spark to ignite.
It is indeed affected this year by an exceptional drought and the temperature has reached
records in
recent days
with nearly 50 degrees celsius
in places.
The mercury has now fallen, but few fires have yet been brought under control.
The federal state has deployed several hundred troops to support the firefighters in British Columbia.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also announced the dispatch of military planes to carry out possible new evacuations.
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