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03-07-2021
More than 130 wildfires – fuelled by lightning strikes – are burning across western Canada following a record-breaking heatwave.
Canada’s federal government said it would send military aircraft to help emergency workers battling to control the fires in British Columbia.
Earlier this week, people had to flee the village of Lytton in the province.
Lytton, which recorded Canada’s highest ever temperature of 49.6C (121.3F) on Tuesday, was destroyed by fire.
The blaze in the village about 260km (160 miles) north-east of Vancouver forced many of its 250 residents to leave without their belongings on Wednesday evening.
“Within about 15 minutes the whole town was engulfed in flames,” Mayor Jan Polderman told media.
Abnormally high temperatures have been recorded in swathes of North America in recent days.
Experts say that climate change is expected to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves. However, linking any single event to global warming is complicated.
On Friday, the British Columbia Wildfire Service said that 136 fires were active across the province following some 12,000 lightning strikes the previous day.
Hundreds of people have been warned they may have to leave their homes.
Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the government would provide aid, including military helicopters and personnel, to help tackle the fires and reach people threatened by the flames.
The blazes have forced the closure of a number of major roads.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the weather and the wildfires were having a “devastating” and “unprecedented” impact on British Columbia.
“These wildfires show that we are in the earliest stages of what promises to be a long and challenging summer,” he said.
Health officials say extreme heat is likely to have contributed to 719 sudden deaths over the past week.
“Many of the deaths experienced over the past week were among older individuals living alone in private residences with minimal ventilation,” Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe said in a statement.
Temperatures have been easing in coastal areas of Canada, but there is not much respite for inland regions. The British Columbia Wildfire Service said it was bracing for more wildfires throughout the weekend.
Hundreds of sudden deaths, many of them suspected of being heat-related, have been reported during Canada’s record-breaking heatwave, officials say.
Some 486 fatalities were recorded over the past five days in British Columbia alone, a 195% increase on the usual amount over that period.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered condolences to families of the victims, many of whom were elderly.
Abnormally high temperatures have been recorded across North America.
British Columbia Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe said on Wednesday: “It is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather BC has experienced and continues to impact many parts of our province.”
She said many of those who died in the heatwave had lived alone in homes that were not ventilated.
Ms Lapointe added that the western province had only seen three heat-related deaths over the past three to five years.
On Wednesday evening, the town of Lytton, British Columbia, was evacuated because of a wildfire – a day after it recorded Canada’s highest ever temperature of 49.6C (121.3F).
Mayor Jan Polderman told media”, the whole town is on fire. It took like a whole 15 minutes from the first sign of smoke to all of a sudden there being fire everywhere.” (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
