Crews were battling 376 wildfires in B.C.(British Columbia) on Tuesday after dozens of new blazes over the weekend added to the already staggering total.Some 80 per cent of the province is now at extreme or high risk of forest fire, officials said Tuesday.
Worst hit is the Cariboo region in the province's Interior, where as many as one-third of the blazes are burning out of control, officials estimate. Some fires in the Jade Mountain area near Lillooet have been burning for two weeks or moreEvacuation orders are in effect across much of the Cariboo region, but at last count, 53 people in the area refused to leave.A 52-year-old man from Quesnel died Sunday when he was struck by a tree while he was cutting trees for firewood.
The man left his property on Sunday after learning of the evacuation order, officials said, but instead of immediately fleeing the evacuation zone, he decided to stop on Crown land adjacent to his property to cut firewood."This incident is clearly tragic. While it was not specifically linked to the fire situation, it required first responders to enter an evacuation area to deal with the matter," the RCMP said in a release.
The cause of most of the fires is believed to be lightning from a storm that swept across the province last week. Tinder-dry conditions coupled with hot temperatures are making it difficult to get the blazes under control.
"The dry conditions are certainly posing a challenge," fire information officer Kim Steinbart said.
Environment Canada's forecast calls for hot, dry conditions to persist, and it's not likely much rain will fall on any of the affected regions until next weekend at the earliest.
No comments:
Post a Comment