Tens of thousands of people had to be evacuated to northern and western Canada, where firefighters continued Saturday to battle unusually intense wildfires.

“It’s the first time something like this, of this magnitude, has happened in the region,” 82-year-old Tony Whitford told AFP.

This neighbor and his family were evacuated Thursday from Yewlownife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, to the city of Calgary, Alberta, about 1,750 km to the south.

“At least 19,000 people have been evacuated from Yellowknife in the past 48 hours,” Northwest Territories Environment Minister Shane Thompson told nearly the entire city late Friday.

Some 15,000 people fled by road and 3,800 were evacuated by air, while at least 300 firefighters were mobilized to battle the flames, one of the biggest efforts this isolated region of Canada’s Far North has ever had. never known, he added.

“It was really awful. I couldn’t believe it,” said Martha Kanatsiak, a 59-year-old Yellowknife resident who has lived there for more than 20 years and who arrived in Calgary late Friday.

“I’m sad, depressed and worried. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said the Inuit retiree, who was carrying only a few bags with her. “I hope it ends soon, because it’s very hard.”

At least 40 flights with 3,500 passengers on board from Yellowknife have landed in Calgary, and the city has made 495 hotel rooms available for evacuees, authorities said.

“I feel lost, I have no idea what’s going to happen now,” said Byron Garrison, a 27-year-old construction worker accompanied by his girlfriend and a friend, all three visibly scared.

The refugees from the Far North were received in a small room to be registered and distributed among the hotels. Fruit, biscuits and water were distributed to them, as confirmed by an AFP journalist.

Keep reading the story

The fires were 15 km from Yellownife on Saturday, but winds blowing from the northwest could carry the flames to the city limits, according to Canadian authorities.

-Thick smoke-

British Columbia is also dealing with wildfires and had to declare a state of emergency on Friday.

Thick smoke engulfed the city of Kelowna, some 600 km west of Calgary, which has about 150,000 inhabitants, according to AFP journalists.

The local UBC campus, home to more than 11,000 students, received evacuation orders on Friday night and area airspace was closed to help planes fight the fires .

The situation is also critical on the other side of Lake Okanagan, in West Kelowna (more than 30,000 inhabitants), where “a significant number” of houses have burned down, according to authorities.

The luxury Lake Okanagan Resort, which in the past housed high-profile political leaders like former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is among the buildings ravaged by the flames, according to images circulating in the local press.

“About 150,000 people have been issued evacuation orders” across British Columbia and 20,000 must be ready to evacuate their homes at any time, Bowinn Ma, the provincial minister responsible for crisis management, said Friday during a briefing. a press conference.

Several thousand evacuations also took place in the state of Washington, in the United States, neighboring British Columbia, where a fire broke out on Friday near the city of Spokane, according to local press. Authorities have confirmed one death.

During a trip to a reception center for northern evacuees in Edmonton on Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke of “terrifying and uncertain times” as more than a thousand fires ravage the eastern country. west, including more than 230 in the Northwest Territories and more than 370 in British Columbia.

Canada has faced extreme weather events in recent years, the intensity and frequency of which are increased by global warming.

The country is experiencing a record wildfire season this year: 168,000 Canadians have been evacuated and 14 million hectares, an area similar to that of Greece, have burned, double the last record, dating from 1989.

str-pr-dax/la/dg/db