Wildfires that have already forced the evacuation of thousands of people in Canada’s eastern province of Nova Scotia continued to burn Thursday, causing poor air quality hundreds of miles away as smoke drifted south across the border with the United States.
Federal aid was arriving, authorities said, along with about 100 US firefighters, after local authorities asked for outside help.
Canada’s federal government had already “provided airlifts, aerial surveillance, crew comfort trailers and food in emergency shelters,” Sean Fraser, a cabinet minister and member of parliament for Nova Scotia, said on Twitter on Thursday.
The formal request for aid will allow the government to provide additional resources, he said.
“We are in a crisis in the province and we want and need and will get all the support we can get,” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said at a news conference Wednesday, appealing for help.
“Unprecedented resources are being used because these fires are unprecedented.”
Additional kits have already been shipped from Ontario, and a dozen water pumps from neighboring regions and the Coast Guard have joined the efforts to put out the flames and help with evacuations.
Houston said she has also asked the military for help.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the bushfires “heartbreaking” and promised unlimited support.
As of Wednesday night, 14 wildfires were burning in Nova Scotia, including three out of control. So far they have destroyed or damaged more than 200 houses and other structures, including a wooden bridge, but no injuries have been reported.
Smoke from the wildfires billowed up the Atlantic coast, prompting air quality alerts in the US state of New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania, including the Philadelphia area.
David Meldrum of Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, pointing to the forecast for record temperatures this week, warned of “a protracted operation” to control a large fire northwest of the port city that has displaced more than 16,000 residents.
Hot and dry weather was in the forecast for Thursday, with rain in the forecast for Friday night.
“People are understandably tired, frustrated and scared,” Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said, adding that “some don’t have a home to return to.”
Houston announced a ban on all activities in Nova Scotia’s forests, including hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, ATVing and logging, and on Wednesday increased the fine for violating the ban on burning about $18,000 ($25,000 Canadian). .
Government data shows a decline in the number of wildfires in Canada since the 1980s, likely due to better fire prevention.
But the last decade has also seen more disastrous wildfires that have burned much more land and displaced many more people, problems that will only get worse with climate change.
In recent years, Western Canada has repeatedly been hit by extreme weather conditions, including floods and mudslides, wildfires that destroyed an entire city, and record-breaking summer temperatures that killed more than 500 people in 2021.
On Tuesday, 800 residents of Fort Chiepwyan, in northern Alberta, had to be airlifted to safety as fires raged through the remote village.
Earlier this month, wildfires in alberta it burned nearly one million hectares (2.74 million acres) of forest and grassland and, at one point, displaced 30,000 people.
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