A helicopter drops water on a hot spot at a wildfire in Tantallon, N.S., on June 1.HO/The Canadian Press
Wildfires are raging from British Columbia to the Atlantic, forcing thousands to evacuate and overwhelming firefighting capacity in some areas.
The largest fire recorded in Nova Scotia’s history, located in the southwest of the province, grew to more than 23,000 hectares Friday, provincial officials said, despite a constant attack from aerial waterbombers and firefighters on the ground.
Dave Rockwood, of the province’s Department of Natural Resources, said bone-dry forests, gusting winds and a lack of rainfall set the conditions for the blaze. “We need the weather to give us a hand when fires get this big,” he said.
Lots of rain is on the way to Nova Scotia, Environment Canada meteorologist Bob Robichaud said, but wildfires west of Halifax and in the southwestern Barrington Lake area have already forced the evacuation of at least 21,000 people and burned about 200 homes this week.
Jessika Hepburn, a resident of Birchtown, in southwestern Nova Scotia and a Black advocate, said she and others are rallying to protect and inform vulnerable residents there and in nearby Shelburne. About half the municipality’s population – roughly 6,700 people – have been evacuated from their homes.
She said she is advocating going door to door to update people and ensure they have masks and water, especially those who may not know they need to leave because their telephone and internet services are not working.
“It’s a very terrifying time,” she said. “I have concern for our elders who are breathing in smoky air, who don’t have HEPA filters. There’s been no delivery of N95 masks or bottled water.”
The Canadian Red Cross has registered 7,000 affected households in Nova Scotia. The province announced on Friday that small businesses in evacuated zones would be eligible for one-time grants of $2,500.
Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said Friday that the Canadian Forces “are moving quickly” to mobilize, train and deploy an unspecified number of members in Nova Scotia. He said four waterbombers, contracted by the Nova Scotia government from Montana, would arrive Friday, and two more on Saturday.
At a news conference in Toronto, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government is prepared to support firefighting efforts across the country in whatever way it can.
“This is a scary time for a lot of people, from coast, to coast, to coast,” he said.
The Canada Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported that, as of Friday afternoon, there were 324 fires burning across the country, with 167 considered out of control. That’s a big jump from Thursday, when the agency reported 209 fires, with 87 out of control.
In Quebec, there were 116 active wildfires Friday in the “intensive zone,” which covers roughly the southern half of the province, according to the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu, the organization fighting wildfires in the province.
SOPFEU is not equipped to fight so many fires simultaneously, spokesperson Stéphane Caron said, meaning it has had to prioritize. The organization has deployed about 400 firefighters to fight only 21 wildfires, Mr. Caron said.
Nearly 11,000 hectares have already burned in the zone, more than 55 times the past decade’s average at this time of the year, according to SOPFEU.
Mr. Caron said a fire near Sept-Îles, in the Côte-Nord region of Eastern Quebec, had damaged power lines, causing tens of thousands of outages Thursday.
The mayor of Sept-Îles, Steeve Beaupré, declared a state of emergency. He said about 4,000 people had been evacuated as of Friday afternoon, a total that could increase.
“I have never seen an evacuation of such magnitude” in Sept-Îles, he said.
Another 1,500 people were ordered to evacuate from the nearby Mani-Utenam community of the Innu Takuaikan Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam First Nation, spokesperson Jean-Claude Therrien Pinette said.
A combination of dry weather and heavy damage from the eastern spruce budworm had rendered the surrounding forest particularly vulnerable to fire this year, according to Mr. Therrien Pinette.
Wildfires also forced the evacuations of about 500 homes in Chapais, in Northern Quebec, according to Jean-Raphaël Drolet of the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police.
In B.C., there were 55 active wildfires Friday, including nine considered out of control, according to the province’s online emergency map. The Peace River Regional District, the Village of Lytton and the Lytton First Nation were all under evacuation orders.
In Alberta, wildfires have burned nearly 1.2 million hectares, almost 100 times more than last year at this time. Rain and cooler temperatures have helped with the firefighting effort, but a state of emergency remains in place. There are 56 active blazes, 15 of which are considered out of control.
Christie Tucker, a spokesperson for Alberta Wildfire, said during a news conference Friday that about 1,700 local firefighters have been joined by 900 from out of province.
”It was a good day for firefighters yesterday,” Ms. Tucker said. “We saw minimal growth on wildfires in the province, allowing them to make progress on containing the fires.”
There are already more than 500 firefighters from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand assisting in Alberta, according to Mr. Blair’s office, and more than 700 additional firefighters from those countries and South Africa are expected to arrive in Alberta and Nova Scotia in the coming week.
Separate from the federal announcement, there are 17 firefighters arriving in Nova Scotia from New England on Saturday, with an additional 18 coming Monday. Another 40 from Costa Rica are arriving next week through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
With a report from The Canadian Press.