This year’s wildfire season has been unprecedented. Drier-than-average conditions combined with hotter-than-average temperatures around the world have created a tinder box, reported CNN. Massive wildfires in the U.S., Canada and Russia continue to ravage the countrysides.
- “The fire season is getting longer, the fires are getting larger, they’re burning more intensely than ever before,” said Thomas Smith, assistant professor in Environmental Geography at the London School of Economics, per CNN.
- According to CNN, firefighters are left “fighting a near-impossible battle to smother the infernos with water bombs and hoses and preventing their spread by digging firebreaks.”
The world is literally on fire. Here’s what’s happening with wildfires around the world.
What’s going on with Canada’s wildfires?
Already, Canada has recorded 4,300 wildfires this year across British Colombia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, reported BBC. The southwestern province of British Colombia — which borders Washington and Montana — has been particularly hard hit.
- British Colombia declared a state of emergency Wednesday due to the ongoing wildfires. The province has about 300 fires currently burning, reported Al Jazeera.
- The provincial government has issued evacuation orders that affect more than 5,700 people and standby evacuation alerts that affect 32,000 more people, per The New York Times.
- The wildfires have already burned entire villages, reported the Deseret News.
Smoke from Canada’s wildfires has gotten so thick that numerous provinces across the country have issued air quality warnings, reported Global News. The wildfires have become so substantial that they can be seen by satellites in space.
- Unfortunately, there is still no sign of rain for western Canadian provinces, reported BBC.
What’s going on with wildfires in the U.S.?
Similarly, wildfire season in the U.S. has been more intense than in previous years. There have already been more than 4,000 blazes, mostly in Western states, reported BBC. This is almost double all of last year’s total fires.
- Oregon’s Bootleg fire is still the largest active fire in the U.S., reported the Deseret News.
- The Bootleg Fire is burning about 364,000 acres and has burned so intensely that it is now creating its own weather, reported Yahoo News. The Bootleg Fire can be seen from space.
The impact of these wildfires has reached across the U.S., filling the skies of New York City with thick smoke, reported CNN. The smoke has reached more than 3,000 miles away in a fire season unlike anything before.
What’s going on with Russia’s wildfire in Siberia?
And if the wildfires in Canada and the U.S. weren’t concerning enough, Russia is also experiencing unprecedented wildfires in Siberia. The world’s coldest town in Yakutia, Siberia, is currently covered with a blanket of smoke from nearby wildfires, reported CNN.
- High-intensity wildfires have been burning continuously in Siberia since the last few days of June, per CNN.
- Already, the blazes have consumed 6.5 million acres of land this year, reported CNN.
“New fires have appeared in the north of Yakutia in places where there were no fires last year and where it had not burned at all before,” wildfire reconnaissance pilot Svyatoslav Kolesov told CNN.
According to experts, the increasingly frequent and extreme wildfires have been linked to climate change, reported CNN.