Forest fires in Canada force the evacuation of thousands of people to the west

Canadian authorities evacuated this Friday 2,400 people from the town of Tumbler Ridge, in the west of the country, due to the threat of a Forest fireone of more than 400 that are active throughout Canada.

Authorities in the province of British Columbia, on the Pacific coast, warned that the flames are three kilometers from Tumbler Ridgesome 1,100 kilometers north of the city of Vancouver, which has forced the evacuation of the entire population.

the fire of Tumbler Ridge is one of the 73 that are active this Friday in British Columbia, a province that like the rest of the country is experiencing unusually dry conditions that have caused one of the worst waves of fires in modern Canadian history.

Meanwhile, in the east of the country, where about 200 forest fires are actives, the province of Quebec received this Friday a contingent of 100 French firefighters to help fight the flames of 140 active fires.

Are these firesalong with those of another 50 in the neighboring province of Ontario, which have generated the smoke that since the beginning of the week has caused problems in the health of the air in Canada the thing this of USA.

This Friday, the air quality improved significantly in cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, thanks to the weather conditions and despite the fact that forest fires continue to burn thousands of hectares of forest and vegetation every day.

In so far this year, Canada has suffered some 2,400 forest fires and has lost 4.3 million hectares of forest16 times more than the average of the last decade.

What causes forest fires in Canada?

Professor of Physics and Environmental Sciences at the University of Toronto, Tanzina Mohsin, explained in statements to EFE that climate change is directly responsible for the dramatic increase in forest fires who is suffering Canada.

Mohsin noted that the call “vapor pressure deficit”the difference between the amount of water vapor in the air and the amount of moisture it can hold when it is saturated, is causing the extreme dryness of the vegetation, which thus becomes the ideal fuel for forest fires.

The academic warned that it is arriving, or is already, in a cycle of destruction that feeds itself.

In this cycle, the rise in temperatures due to human CO2 emissions causes an increase in forest fires in the northernmost regions of the planet.

These fires, like the ones suffered Canadaemit large amounts of carbon dioxide and also reduce the capacity of vegetation to retain CO2, which accelerates the global warming in an unstoppable cycle.

“Right now, no matter what we do, we are not going to be able to escape that increase. And it’s going to be hard to keep it below two degrees. So we can’t just try to mitigate the effects of global warming. Now we have to implement adaptation actions”said.

Mohsin gave as an example the need to cease all development, such as urbanization, in areas prone to forest fires.

“We have to plan how to reduce the risks. We have to plan forest management. And we have to think about technology, which is advancing very quickly. Those should be our goals.”he concluded.

(With information from EFE)