All the elements are in place for Quebec to ignite like the west of the country and Nova Scotia, while the province is experiencing an “extreme flammability index”.
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“Precipitation, humidity, wind speed: this cocktail makes everything extreme. The slightest spark is enough,” explained Mélanie Morin, spokesperson for SOPFEU (Society for the protection of forests against fire), in an interview with the QMI Agency.
Damage is already evident, as evidenced by the 250,000 customers deprived of electricity due to the fires affecting Hydro-Québec’s infrastructure on the North Shore. The number of fires on Quebec territory fluctuated around 70 at the end of the afternoon Thursday, according to figures from SOPFEU.
The weather forecast is nothing to help: the next rainfall is expected only during the next week. Although it is fire season, “it’s been a few years since we’ve seen so many during this period,” said Ms.me Morin.
The drought is such that Quebec has issued a warning to “restrict travel in the forest as much as possible over the next few days”. Open fires in or near the forest are already prohibited “throughout the territory”.
SOPFEU’s 350 seasonal employees, mostly firefighters specializing in forest fires, are currently hard at work, as are the 15 air tankers and helicopters that allow travel on the territory.
Quebec firefighters were able to help out Alberta at the beginning of May, but the situation in Quebec now requires all available personnel.
“We recognize that the situation is changing rapidly and we are keeping a close eye on Quebec as the fires begin to affect the province,” said Stéphane Lauzon, parliamentary secretary for Rural Economic Development in Ottawa.
The Cree communities of the First Nation of Waskaganish and the Innu band of Pessamit are the most at risk given their proximity to the affected areas.
After the west of the country and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in early May, it is the turn of the east of the country and Nova Scotia to be affected by “unprecedented fires”.
“These conditions, at this point in the season, are absolutely unprecedented and obviously cause for concern,” said Bill Blair, Canada’s Public Safety Minister.
Currently, 211 wildfires are raging in the country and 82 are out of control, he said.
“We know that we are on a trajectory where there will be more and more fires,” said Yves Bergeron, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Forest Management and professor at UQAM and l ‘UQAT.
Climate projections point to two trends that will inevitably worsen forest fires in Quebec: shorter winters, synonymous with longer fire seasons, as well as a higher frequency of fires on the territory.
Devastating fires in Western Canada and Nova Scotia
The equivalent of approximately 5 million football fields have been reduced to ashes by particularly intense forest fires since the beginning of the year in the country, and it is mainly the provinces of Western Canada and now New -Scotland who pay the price.
Since May 10, 450 soldiers have been deployed in Alberta, while others are on their way to Nova Scotia, whose request for assistance was received and approved on Thursday.
With 16 active fires, the Maritimes province is having a particularly devastating season: more than 16,000 people have had to be evacuated from the main suburbs of Halifax, while a fire near Lake Barrington has already ravaged 20,000 hectares, which makes it the largest fire in Nova Scotia’s history.
In addition to the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Coast Guard will help transport personnel, the Department of Transport will provide aerial surveillance and the Public Health Agency of Canada will provide beds and blankets to those forced to flee. .
“We are far from out of the woods. We are still facing a very dangerous and volatile situation,” explained David Steeves of the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources.