To understand the extent of the damage linked to Canadian forest fires, franceinfo compared the area burned in Canada to four French cities.
Canada continues to burn and is experiencing an unprecedented year on the fire front. As of June 8, around 2,300 forest fires have been recorded for a total of 3.8 million hectares that have gone up in smoke, a figure well above the average for the last decade.
Three provinces were particularly affected: Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec. It was in Alberta, in western Canada, that the first fires started around April 30, necessitating the intervention of the army to help the firefighters who were already out of breath. To date, 73 fires are still active there. Among them, about twenty are still considered out of control by the government. A few days later, it was in the maritime province of Nova Scotia that a gigantic blaze broke out, burning some 26,656 hectares, the largest in the history of the territory. In Quebec, the flames also continue to rage. According to the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (Sopfeu), 137 fires are still active, including 92 out of control. A total of 639,600 hectares of forest and brush have been burned in the province.
More than 20,000 people are being evacuated across the country, half of them in Quebec. The government is preparing to evacuate another 4,000. At the same time, the international community is providing support by sending firefighters. “Hundreds of American firefighters have just arrived in Canada and more are on the way,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on the evening of Wednesday June 7 after meeting with US President Joe Biden. On the French side, a hundred firefighters left to lend a hand to their Quebec counterparts, Emmanuel Macron said on TwitterJune 4.
It’s hard to imagine the extent of the damage if these fires took place in France, 18 times smaller than Canada. To view them, franceinfo put the Canadian fires into perspective with four major French cities: Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse. Thus, these 3.8 million hectares would represent almost 7% of the French territory, which has about 55 million.
More than 360 times the area of Paris
The area burned by the fires raging in Canada represents 3.16 times the area of the Ile-de-France region. This corresponds to a circle with a radius of about 110 km completely destroyed by the flames, the distance between Paris and Rouen as the crow flies. Compared to the area of the capital, this represents more than 360 times the area of Paris Intramural.
More than 158 times that of Marseille
If we go further to the south of the country, towards Marseille, the ninth largest city in France in terms of area with its 24,000 hectares, the comparison is just as terrifying. Canadian forest fires represent 121% of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, more than all of it, and 158.3 times the area of Marseille. The fire would completely burn the cities of Aix-en-Provence, Toulon, Nice or even La-Seyne-sur-Mer.
Almost 794 times the city of Lyon
On the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes side, Canadian fires represent 54.51% of this region measuring 6.97 million hectares and would burn 794 cities the size of Lyon in their path. They would extend to Switzerland and could destroy Geneva.
More than 321 times that of Toulouse
Fires on the scale of those in Canada would also ravage more than 321 cities such as Toulouse, which covers an area of 11,830 hectares. Brought back to Occitania, they would represent 52.25% of the region, the second largest in France.
