More than 100 blazes are burning across Canada Monday, with several major wildfires prompting evacuations for hundreds of residents and threatening to swallow up communities.
In the province of Manitoba, in eastern Canada, a massive fire had charred more than 86,000 acres by Monday evening and was less than a mile away from the community of Cranberry Portage, local authorities said. More than 500 residents there had been evacuated, according to Manitoba officials.
“I’ve been working in wildfires for 40 years, I’ve never seen a fire move like this fire moved,” Manitoba Wildfire Service Director Earl Simmons said in a Monday news conference.
In Western Canada, the Parker Lake Fire in northeastern British Columbia more than tripled in size over the weekend to 13,000 acres and is now on the doorstep of the small community of Fort Nelson. The blaze was less than 1.5 miles west of the town Monday morning, and gusty winds are expected to linger in the coming days and could bring the flames even closer.
“The next 48 hours will be a challenging situation,” said Bowinn Ma, BC minister of emergency management and climate readiness. “We may begin to see volatile wildfire activity later this afternoon.”
As of Monday morning, roughly 4,700 people were under evacuation orders, including in the town of Fort Nelson and Fort Nelson First Nation, Ma said. People across 80 other properties were also asked to evacuate, the official added.
Evacuation alerts are also in effect for parts of Alberta as wildfire MWF-017 burns about 10 miles southwest of the city of Fort McMurray – an area that was devastated by a wildfire in 2016. By Monday evening, that blaze had grown to more than 16,200 acres.
An evacuation alert was issued for residents in Fort McMurray, Saprae Creek, Gregoire Lake Estates, Fort McMurray 468 First Nation and Anzac, according to Alberta officials.
The blazes also prompted the Canadian National Railway Company to suspend services in some areas.
Source: CNN
