The extent of the fires and their earlier-than-normal appearance illustrate the impacts of climate change, scientists say.
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Due to its geographic location, Canada is warming faster than the rest of the world. These phenomena, therefore, are increasingly likely to occur frequently.
“In total, 390.000 hectares have already been burned. That’s 10 times more than a normal year, and we’re still getting started,” said Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta, where a state of emergency has been declared.
“It is an extraordinary (and) unprecedented event, so I believe we have to be prepared in the future,” she told the press on Tuesday.
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Nearly 30.000 people have been ordered to leave their homes as hundreds of firefighters work to control the flames.
“It is an exceptional year in that the accumulation of burned areas is very rapid, as well as the number of very large fires at the same time,” Yan Boulanger, a forest fire specialist at the Canadian Ministry of Natural Resources, told AFP.
The vast majority of fires occur due to human action, caused by cigarette butts, bonfires that were not put out properly and, sometimes, malicious acts, he listed.
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The dangerous month of May
Spring is a risky time for fires in this region of Canada: there is no more snow on the ground and the plants have not yet regrown.
“We end up with very dry undergrowth and trees that are very flammable because they have no leaves,” Boulanger said. “Conditions over the last few weeks have been very dry.”
“This is always a dangerous time,” highlighted Terri Lang, meteorologist at the Ministry of the Environment.
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At the beginning of May, a meteorological phenomenon occurred that “brought really abnormal heat and dry conditions to the province for that moment”, the expert told AFP.
A peak of high pressure prevented the arrival of rain and maintained the heat, resulting in the breaking of several temperature records in the region.
In Edmonton, the provincial capital, temperatures reached 28,9º on May 1, an all-time high since 26,7º in 1931. And on Thursday, it reached 32,2º in Fort McMurray, in the north.
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To this were added winds favored by the temperature differences between the cold in the north and the heat in the south. “It was the perfect storm,” Lang said.
Boulanger said that “if conditions remain extreme, it could last weeks or months.”
The forestry expert recalled that, in May 2016, the gigantic fire in Fort McMurray, a city known for its huge tar sands industrial complex, took almost a year to put out.
More common with global warming
Diana Stralberg, a researcher at the Ministry of Natural Resources in Edmonton, explained that human-caused climate change is extending the fire season and causing “extreme fire conditions” to occur more frequently.
“Although fire is a natural process of forest renewal, more frequent fires, as well as fires followed by drought, can interrupt the regeneration of conifers” and cause the reduction of forest areas in favor of pastures, this person told AFP. climate specialist.
Little by little, the forest shrinks, with direct consequences for dozens of species of migratory birds and reindeer.
“Models to predict future fire and vegetation conditions have shown that under high-level warming scenarios, up to 50% of Alberta's boreal forest could be at risk of becoming grassland by the end of the XNUMXst century,” Stralberg said.
Increased fires also mean large greenhouse gas emissions, which further intensify climate change, in a mechanism researchers call the “fire-climate feedback loop.”
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