McKay Creek fire, about 23 km north of the community of Lillooe /
Dozens of fires in western Canada and the US make it difficult to drop temperatures as storms hit Washington
The extreme heat wave that has killed half a thousand people in North America in recent days has added a new ally to keep thermometers at record highs: forest fires. Dozens of fires ravaged western Canada and the United States this Friday, favored by the extremely dry environment and a strong wind that spreads flames like wildfire in states like California, where the dozen active outbreaks have already destroyed more than 8,000 hectares and has triggered evacuation notices for large areas. Meanwhile, the firefighters worked at forced marches but barely had a fifth of the burned areas under control.
In the Canadian province of British Columbia, a thousand people had to be moved to safety after a forest fire burned a small town that had been breaking national temperature records for three days. In total, 62 outbreaks have been registered in the area in just 24 hours, according to the region’s prime minister, John Horgan.
Several of the fires were concentrated north of the city of Kamloops, located about 150 kilometers northeast of Lytton. According to the newspaper ‘The Star’, in the latter town some of its residents were still missing on Friday night after ordering their evacuation the day before after being destroyed by flames “90% of the town, including the center,” said the Local MP Brad Vis.
British Columbia authorities were considering declaring a state of emergency due to the wildfires. Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry warned in a statement that heat alerts have also been issued for the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, parts of the Northwest Territories and northern Ontario. “The duration of this wave is worrying, as there is little relief overnight,” when high temperatures persist, they noted.
Without eleectricity
On the other side of the border, the states of Oregon and Washington were also still suffocated with record temperatures that had barely registered drops, although it is expected that throughout this weekend the thermometers continue to fall. What have been recorded are strong storms in the federal district area, which caused material damage, traffic disruptions and left some 21,000 without electricity in Maryland, where a person had to be hospitalized when a large tree fell on his house.
The torrential rains are a consequence of the high temperatures that have been registered and that have also caused the melting of rivers in the mountains that have caused flooding in the idyllic Pemberton Valley, in British Columbia, where their neighbors had to be evacuated due to the floods .
Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington, warned this Friday, for her part, that the real death toll from this heat wave will be much higher than current estimates. “Those numbers are only going to increase,” he warned.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/wildfires-exacerbate-north-american-heat-wave/
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