Canadian wildfires have burned more than 10 million hectares this year, a record-breaking figure that has surpassed scientists' most pessimistic predictions, government data released on Saturday showed.
The prior all-time high occurred in 1989, when 7.3 million hectares were burned over the course of an entire year, according to national figures from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC).
The area burned this year is roughly equivalent to the size of Portugal or Iceland.
This image shows a French firefighter battling wildfires in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec, more than 650 kilometers north of Montreal, Canada, July 2, 2023. /AFP
In total, 4,088 fires have occurred since January, including many blazes that have scorched hundreds of thousands of hectares.
More than 150,000 people have been displaced, and a 19-year-old firefighter died on Thursday.
"We're dealing with immense areas," said Colonel Philippe Sansa, who heads a detachment of French firefighters deployed in hard-hit northern Quebec.
"The fire we're managing is 65 kilometers long, which poses enormous organizational challenges."
This image shows remnants from forest fires on both sides of the 103 highway in the Shelburne area in Canada, June 22, 2023. /AFP
In British Columbia, some 2,000 firefighters are battling more than 350 fires.
Authorities have requested an extra 1,000 international firefighters to help tackle blazes that have burned 1.2 million hectares of forest in the province so far this year, far above the 10-year average of 76,000 hectares.
Lack of rain in recent months has left much British Columbia parched, in what officials say is an "unprecedented" level of drought for this early in the year.
Hot weather is forecast to persist across much of the province and thunderstorms are likely to bring more lightning strikes that will spark more fires, Cliff Chapman, director of provincial operations for BC Wildfire, said in a media briefing on Thursday.
"We have seen more fire on the landscape in terms of number of starts than in previous years at this point in time," Chapman said, adding there have been 51,000 lightning strikes in the last week alone.
This photo shows a firefighting plane dropping fire retardant on the Whyte Lake wildfire, located east of Horseshoe Bay near West Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, June 26, 2023. /AFP
Much of Canada is suffering from severe drought, with months of below-average rainfall and warm temperatures.
The country is warming faster than the rest of the planet because of its geography, and has been confronted with extreme weather events whose intensity and frequency have increased due to climate change, scientists say.
(With input from AFP and Reuters)
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