Tens of millions of hectares are destroyed each year from wildfires directly related to climate change.
The B.C wildfires continue to burn at a rapid rate destroying over 868,619 hectares of forestry and wildlife habitats. Firefighters have been continuously fighting fires throughout the province bringing the total active fires to 210. At the height of the burning season, there were 1,583 active fires within British Columbia. The sheer amount of smoke produced has created a haze that has made its way to the prairie provinces.
B.C is not the only Canadian province dealing with wildfires and according to the Manitoba, Wildfire Service, there are high to extreme fire danger levels across the province.
With wildfires rampant throughout Manitoba, more resources than Canada can expend are being used to combat them. With the province ablaze, international help was needed to protect citizens. And in this time of peril, over one hundred South African firefighters came to assist the province.
Wildfires globally is a direct effect of climate change, and while there are those who continue to deny it’s a real problem, fires remain ablaze. In Turkey this year, over 132 devastating fires have ravaged their way through mainly southern parts of the country. According to the European Forest Fire Information System, the fires have killed many civilians and burned more than 118,789 hectares of land.
Then there was France that saw one of the country’s most destructive fire seasons in decades. An intense heatwave has been terrorizing Europe, sparking wildfires across Europe. Across southern Europe and the Mediterranean, temperatures have been upwards of 40 degrees. France is one of the many countries whose plant life caught fire due to the intense heat and dryness of the air.
Over 900 firefighters and 120 gendarmes (a branch of the French military) were deployed to help combat the tall flames from the Var region to the west of Saint-Tropez. Water-bombers took to the skies as thousands of civilians fled while damaging over 5,000 hectares of forests and shrubland have been engulfed in flames.
The fires in France as well as the Medditarean fires and Southern European massive heatwaves, come mere weeks after the floods in Central Europe, deluges in China, and wildfires in North America. They are all undeniably a direct result of climate change. As per the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) report, fossil fuel production and use are major contributors to the warming of the earth.
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