Canadian wildfire officials on Friday said that the 2023 wildfire season is easily the worst ever recorded, with millions of hectares already burned, Canada-based CBC News reported.
The officials said that they are expecting "higher-than-normal" activity to continue throughout the late summer and fall.
Speaking to reporters at a briefing, Michael Norton, the Director General of the Northern Forestry Centre at the Canadian Forest Centre, said there's an "extreme risk" for more fire in British Columbia, the Prairies, the Northwest Territories and in northern Ontario as there has been a drought in some regions that could help fuel the flames.
Norton said, "This summer has turned into a challenging marathon. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that the fire season is not over and it's likely we'll experience significant fire activity for many weeks yet," CBC News reported.
Federal data has revealed that this wildfire season has already reported 5,500 fires that have burned approximately 13.4 million hectares. The figure is significantly more than the 10-year average of 2.2 million hectares burned in any given year. It also exceeds the previous record of 7.6 million hectares reported in 1989.
Norton said that the number of hectares burned this year is so high because there's been fire activity reported in virtually every corner of Canada. He said "monumental fires" in Quebec and unusual fires in Nova Scotia have been "challenging" for Canada's firefighting resources, according to CBC News report.
He said June, which normally is a quieter month for fires, was particularly bad this year, with the rise in the figures. So far, 211 evacuation orders have been issued with more than 167,000 people forced to temporarily relocate to avoid disaster, according to federal data.
Norton said the fires have already released one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the air. He said, "This kind of simultaneous fire activity in all regions of the country is virtually unheard of, it's usually more regional," CBC News reported.
Michael Norton said, "There has been very little respite since May. This season has been relentless. This is by far the largest amount of area burned since we started keeping good records."
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