Canada is experiencing one of the harshest wildfire seasons in recent years. Three provinces at once — Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta — are facing large-scale evacuations.
The situation is especially severe in Manitoba, where the area affected by fires is nearly three times the province’s five-year average.
A state of emergency has been declared there. 17,000 people have been forced to leave their homes. About 5,000 residents were evacuated just from the city of Flin Flon. Hotels housing evacuees are overcrowded, with people sleeping on air mattresses and extra cots. In the provincial capital, Winnipeg, public buildings have been opened to accommodate fire refugees.
Several remote Indigenous communities were surrounded by fire without the necessary equipment. People fought the flames using garden hoses and only two fire trucks.
Saskatchewan has also declared a state of emergency. There, 15,000 people have been evacuated, including the city of La Ronge, where the fire reached the airport and damaged the base for tanker aircraft used to fight the fires from the air. This has seriously complicated firefighting efforts.
About 400 buildings have been destroyed, and firefighters had to retreat due to the fire’s extreme behavior.
In Alberta, 56 fires are burning, nearly half of them uncontrolled. Over 1,300 people have been evacuated. Because of difficult terrain and the scale of the disaster, American firefighters and aviation have joined the efforts to extinguish the fires.
Smoke from the wildfires has severely worsened air quality not only in Canada but also in several U.S. states. In North Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana, the air has been declared “unhealthy.”
A large smoke plume crossed the Atlantic and reached Europe on June 1.
The cause of the fires is an abnormally hot and dry spring, a shortage of rainfall, and strong winds. According to experts, there are currently no meteorological conditions capable of stopping the spread of the fires. The coming days will be critical.
Natural disasters are changing — they are becoming stronger and happening more often. Not only emergency responders but all of us must be prepared. It is important to know how to act correctly in such situations to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
We recommend watching the video message by Dr. Egon Cholakian, where he explains why these changes are happening on our planet now, what to expect in the coming years, and most importantly, what must be done to stop these dangerous processes.
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