Global Courant
TORONTO
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that efforts to extinguish “painful and heartbreaking” bushfires in several Canadian provinces are continuing with full force.
“We stand with hundreds of brave men and women battling wildfires across the country. We stand with evacuated communities. And we stand with people from coast to coast who have endured this painful, heartbreaking period,” Trudeau said. Press briefing.
Emphasizing that this is “an especially severe bushfire season”, Trudeau said Canada is collaborating with many countries, including New Zealand, South Africa and France, to put out the fires.
“So far, we have approved three federal assistance requests in Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. This includes deploying members of the Canadian Armed Forces for things like personnel to assist in firefighting roles, airlift supplies, and engineering support.” aforementioned.
Canada continues to train firefighters through the Wildfire Education Fund, where the government is supporting more than 300 local firefighters and 125 local firefighters to be recruited and trained this season.
Speaking at the press conference, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said there have been 2,214 forest fires across the country so far in 2023, and about 3.3 million hectares have burned.
“Currently, 413 wildfires are burning and 249 of those fires are considered out of control. There are also 18 active wildfires affecting the first countries specifically, six in Alberta, five in Saskatchewan, one in the Northwest Territories, and four in Quebec. and both from Nova Scotia,” Blair added.
He noted that as of yesterday, an estimated 26,000 people had been evacuated from their homes.
Canada has been battling wildfires since early May.
There are currently more than 1,000 firefighters from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa helping fight the flames. Additional firefighters are expected to arrive from France.
The severity of the season is unusual, not only because of how many large fires burned, but also because almost all provinces burned at the same time.
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