The gigantic fires in Canada have forced the evacuation of the inhabitants of a city in the north of the country and the declaration of a state of emergency in the region of British Columbia, the most affected with more than 370 fires.

“The situation is unpredictable at the moment and difficult days lie ahead,” said David Eby, the premier of the state of British Columbia, who declared a state of emergency in his region, Friday evening.

The 20,000 residents of Yellowknife, one of the main cities in Canada’s Far North, had until Friday evening to leave the very isolated city.

“I feel lost, I have no idea what’s going to happen now,” Byron Garrison, 27, a construction worker who arrived at Calgary airport from Yellowknife with his car, told AFP. girlfriend and a friend.

Evacuees from the Northern Territories are checked into an airport lounge and then transferred to hotels.

“The government told us we had to leave. So my wife and I took clothes and Rosy (her dog),” said Richard Manubag, 53, a coffee clerk from Yellowknife who hoped to spend only “three or four days” in Calgary. , located 1,700 kilometers south of his city.

“I’m sad. (…) I think of everything I have at home, I don’t know what will happen,” he adds.

– Mobilized army –

Yellowknife has been virtually empty and only soldiers mobilized by the fires remain on its streets, Chad Blewett, an airline pilot who participated in the evacuations, told CBC television.

Most residents of the affected town left by road, authorities said.

“We are all going to come out of this incredibly difficult summer together,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was with several evacuees Friday night at a shelter in Edmonton, about 1,000 kilometers from Yellowknife.

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Currently, more than 1,000 fires are burning in Canada, including more than 370 in British Columbia and more than 230 in the state of the Northwest Territories.

In the middle of the northern summer, the country was ravaged by an impressive wave of fires, which caused the evacuation of 168,000 citizens and burned up to 14 million hectares, the equivalent of the surface of Greece.

Canada has experienced a succession of extreme weather events in recent years, the intensity and frequency of which are exacerbated by climate change.

– “The equivalent of 100 years of fires” –

Some 15,000 Northwest Territories had to be evacuated.

The situation is critical in cities like Kelowna, with 150,000 inhabitants, or West Kelowna, with 30,000 inhabitants, located in the Lake Okanagan region.

The West Kelowna fire chief acknowledged Friday that the night before had been “probably one of the toughest of his career.”

“We are facing the equivalent of 100 years of fires, all concentrated in one night,” Jason Brolund told media.

“We did everything we could to reduce the impact of the fires. But in the end, Mother Nature was too strong,” said Loyal Wooldridge, a local leader from Kelowna.

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