Quebec is looking internationally for support as it struggles to battle more than 160 forest fires during what federal officials say is shaping up to be among Canada’s worst fire seasons ever.
With more than 480 wilderness firefighters on the ground, Quebec can fight about 30 fires, Quebec Premier Francois Legault told reporters on Monday, adding that normally firefighters would come from other provinces to help.
“When I talk to the premiers of other provinces, they have their hands full,” Legault told a briefing in Quebec City.
Photo: AFP
On Friday afternoon there were 324 fires burning across Canada. As of Monday morning that had grown to 413 and by late afternoon, the total jumped again to 420.
“The situation remains serious,” Canadian Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair said. “The images that we have seen so far this season are some of the most severe we have we have ever witnessed in Canada and the current forecast for the next few months indicates the potential for continued higher-than-normal fire activity.”
More than 160 fires have been reported in Quebec including at least 114 that are out of control.
More than 173,000 hectares have burned this year in Quebec’s “intensive protection fire zone” — the area where normally all fires are actively fought — compared with a 10-year average of 247 hectares as of the same date, Quebec’s wildfire prevention agency, SOPFEU said.
Wet weather in the Atlantic coast province of Nova Scotia has allowed that province to free up water bombers to dispatch to Quebec, where wildfires flared up this past weekend.
Legault said an additional 200 firefighters are coming from France and the US, and Quebec is also in talks with Costa Rica, Portugal and Chile as it searches for additional resources.
“With the given projections, it is expected that we have enough resources to cover the summer,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. “If things get worse, we’re developing contingency plans.”
Fires have forced about 10,000 people from their homes in Quebec, with most of those in the northwestern Abitibi region and the eastern Cote-Nord region.
Legault said no lives have been lost in the fires in Quebec, but firefighters were forced to pull back from the hamlet of Clova, Quebec, about 325km northwest of Montreal.
“Unfortunately, we lost control,” Legault said. “We are going to be obliged to let Clova burn.” Authorities said the community’s 36 residents have been evacuated.
Later in the day, officials said the intensity of the fire in the area had exceeded the capacity of water bombers, but it was continuing to work to protect the community.
It said on Twitter that no residences had yet been destroyed, although some cottages might have burned.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not