Canada Deploys Military to Tackle British Columbia Wildfires

Canada is sending the military to tackle the record-breaking wildfires in its British Columbia (BC) province, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday, as local firefighting personnel and resources drained.

RELATED: 

Canada: BC Introduces Travel Restriction Amid Wildfire Crisis

At BC’s request, the federal government is deploying Canadian Armed Forces assets and providing resources to help with evacuations, staging and other logistical tasks, Trudeau said.

On Saturday, BC’s Premier David Eby declared a provincial state of emergency and banned non-essential travel to areas affected by wildfires to ensure accommodations for evacuations. Restricted communities include Kelowna, Kamloops, Oliver, Osoyoos, Penticton and Vernon.

There were some 35,000 people on evacuation orders across the province and another 30,000 on evacuation alert. Government officials have urged residents in evacuation order zones to leave immediately and prevent firefighters from dying while trying to save them.

Fire tourists and drone fliers that may impede firefighting are warned to stay away from the fire-affected zones, BC’s Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston said, asking people to stay clear of lakes which water bombers are using to refill water to douse fires.

Firefighting has drained local resources. Currently, 680 international firefighters are aiding Canada, said Marieke de Roos, spokesperson for the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC), which manages the country’s flow of interprovincial and foreign fire personnel.

Amid a provincial state of emergency since Aug. 16, the Northwest Territories government has requested dozens of firefighters to battle some of the 236 active wildfires in the region alongside the 65 South African firefighters and 120 Canadian soldiers deployed there now.

The BC Wildfire Service said it has been requesting more personnel, partially to replace the nearly 200 American and Australian firefighters who left the province over the past week because of deteriorating wildfires in their own nations.

Latest data from the CIFFC showed about 141,000 square km of land have been scorched nationwide, with smoke shadowing the U.S. East Coast. As of Sunday, there were 1,037 active forest fires around Canada, 379 of which were in BC.

Source link