Wildfires in Canada Have Broken Records for Area Burned, Evacuations and Cost
upstart writes:
Wildfires in Canada have broken records for area burned, evacuations and cost, official says:
Wildfires raging across Canada have already broken records for total area burned, the number of people forced to evacuate their homes and the cost of fighting the blazes, and the fire season is only halfway finished, officials said Thursday.
"It's no understatement to say that the 2023 fire season is and will continue to be record breaking in a number of ways," Michael Norton, director general, Northern Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, said Thursday during a briefing.
[...] The fires have burned 8.8 million hectares (27.7 million acres) an area about the size of the state of Virginia. This already exceeds the record of 7.6 million hectares (18.7 million acres) set in 1989 and is 11 times the 10-year average experienced by this date.
"The final area burned for this season may yet be significantly higher," said Norton. "What we can say with certainty right now is that 2023 is a record-breaking year since at least since 1986 when accurate records started to be kept."
Allen said the fine particles found in fire smoke not only have the ability to penetrate deep into airways, they also can travel long distances meaning they could drift far into the U.S.
There have been reports that fires in Eastern Canada and Quebec are affecting air quality in Europe.
[...] There are about 3,790 provincial firefighters battling the blazes across the country being assisted by Canadian Armed Forces personnel. Another 3,258 firefighters from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the U.S., Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, South Korea and the European Union have travelled to Canada to fight fires.
Norton said the cost of fighting wildfires has steadily grown and is approaching about CDN$1 billion (US$750 million) a year.
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