One of the year’s biggest wildfires in Canada has closed in on the British Columbia hamlet of Fort Nelson, forcing hundreds of people across the country to flee encroaching flames.
Bowinn Ma, the Pacific Coast province’s emergency management minister, said on Monday that 4,700 people had been forced to leave the isolated town and a surrounding Indigenous village as a fire spanning 5,280 hectares approached Fort Nelson within 2.5 km.
Authorities are bracing for another potentially destructive wildfire season, following Canada’s deadliest ever last year, when flames burned from coast to coast and charred more than 15 million hectares of land.
Dozens of zombie fires fueled by layers of dry peat continued to smolder beneath the surface of the boreal forest throughout the winter, which was warmer than usual and resulted in a lesser snowpack, while drought persisted over the region.
British Columbia has established several emergency reception centers and reserved hundreds of hotel rooms for evacuated residents.
As of Monday morning, 137 wildfires were active around the province, 14 of which were out of control.
Authorities in neighboring Alberta said workers and helicopters were tackling 45 active fires, two of which were out of control.
Meanwhile, in Manitoba, officials said a fast-moving 35,000-hectare fire near Flin Flon in the north prompted the evacuation of 550 people over the weekend as it grew in size.
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