Live wildfire updates in Canada for June 12: At 47,000 square kilometres burned, wildfire season now worst in 21st century

The most recent updates from the Canadian wildfires can be found here.

E.U. sending nearly 350 firefighters to help battle wildfires in Quebec

A battalion of nearly 350 firefighters from the European Union will soon be on the ground in Quebec to help their Canadian counterparts tackle a devastating and unprecedented wildfire season.

One hundred and nine firefighters from France arrived last Thursday and spent the weekend dousing flames in Quebec, where fires have forced nearly 14,000 people to flee their homes.

Another 140 reinforcements from Portugal and 97 from Spain are due to arrive in Quebec City on Wednesday, said Claire Kowalewski, the European Union Emergency Response Coordination Centre’s liaison officer in Canada.

It’s the first time in the centre’s 22-year history that it has sent firefighters to help in Canada, Kowalewski said.

“There is this solidarity,” she said. “Today, unfortunately, it’s Canada that is facing these terrible fires. But last year in Spain, it was also a terrible year.”

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The firefighters understand each other, even if they don’t speak the same languages or even use the same techniques, Kowalewski said, adding: “In the end, they have the same objectives.”

Canadian officials have described the destruction from this year’s wildfire season as “unprecedented.” Nearly 430 forest fires roared across the country on Sunday, 210 of which were burning out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Evacuations have been widespread, with more than 100,000 people in nine provinces and territories forced to leave their homes as quickly spreading flames approached.

Officials say the warm, dry conditions driving the fires are expected to prevail in nearly every province and territory through the summer.

Kowalewski is a fire officer in France, and she was seconded to work with the E.U.’s emergency coordination centre. She’s temporarily based at the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre in Winnipeg, where she is overseeing all of the logistics for the European firefighters. There are officers there from other countries that have pitched in to help, including Costa Rica and South Africa, she said.

Canada made an official request for help last Wednesday, triggering the E.U. Civil Protection Mechanism, she said. That call for help went out to 36 different member jurisdictions. In response, the firefighters from France, Portugal and Spain all volunteered to help.

The forest fire season has not begun in their countries and the firefighters saw a window of opportunity to help out across the Atlantic, said Kowalewski.

“They are really proud to come here,” she said. They’ll stay until they aren’t needed anymore, or until they’re needed back in Europe.

She said so far, she and all of the French fire crews have felt welcome. “The firefighters are saying relations with their Canadian colleagues are very good and really, everything is going well,” she said.

On Sunday, that sentiment was shared by authorities in Quebec. Maïté Blanchette Vézina, the province’s natural resources minister, told reporters that firefighters had begun to attack a fire threatening the Atikamekw community of Obedjiwan, rather than just respond to it. That was thanks to help of fire crews from other jurisdictions, including the team from France, she said.

Kowalewski was pleased to hear it. “I hope that the Portuguese and Spanish will also bring a lot of support,” she said.

The Canadian Press

Wildfire updates in Alberta

A wildfire that forced the evacuation of a town west of Edmonton continues to menace the community with crews also battling heavy, vision-obscuring smoke.

Edson Mayor Kevin Zahara says the fire remains within 1.5 kilometres of his town’s southern edge.

“If it does flare up, we don’t have a lot of opportunity or a lot of time (to react),” Zahara said Monday in an online video update.

“It is still very dangerous.”

The evacuation order remains in place for Edson and for adjoining sections of Yellowhead County and won’t be reassessed until Wednesday at the earliest.

Various roads and highways remain closed.

“The risk for this fire moving in different directions in the next two days is extreme,” said Luc Mercier, the chief administrative officer of Yellowhead County.

He said almost 500 crews, on the ground and in the air with helicopters and water bombers, are fighting the flames.

The 8,400 residents of Edson, 200 kilometres west of Edmonton, were forced to flee Friday after flames jumped fireguards.

Christine Beveridge, Edson’s chief administrative officer, said some residents are returning despite the evacuation order.

Beveridge urged those returnees to leave, saying they are making the situation worse for crews trying to focus on the blaze.

“We have had a lot of people come back to the community in the last couple of days,” said Beveridge. “Please obey the order and stay out.

“If we need to deal with these fires and we’ve got to be dealing with getting individuals out of our community again, that unfortunately leads to a very dire situation for first responders as well as for yourselves.”

Beveridge said there are a number of factors to consider before allowing people to return, such as ensuring critical infrastructure is fine and the hospital is ready to accept patients.

Zahazra and Mercier said work continues building fire breaks and securing critical infrastructure in south Edson.

In Edson, firefighters have been going door-to-door moving flammable items including propane tanks and wood piles away from houses and other structures.

Peace officers and members of the RCMP are also doing regular patrols.

This is the second time Edson residents have been forced to flee the wildfires in just over a month. Residents were out for three days in early May.

There are about 14,000 residents out of their homes due to fires scattered through the northern and western areas of the province. Provincewide, about 2,700 crews from as far way as New Zealand and Australia have been helping local firefighters and members of the Canadian Armed Forces contain the blazes.

In Alberta’s far north, an evacuation order has been in place for two weeks in and around Fort Chipewyan.

The order includes the Mikisew Cree First Nation, the Fort Chipewyan Metis Nation and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

Also in northern Alberta, there is an evacuation order for the area in and around Fox Lake, west of Fort Chipewyan.

Wildfire updates in B.C.

Hundreds more properties have been ordered evacuated after high winds fanned a massive wildfire in northeastern British Columbia that is the second largest in the province’s history.

The Peace River Regional District issued the latest order covering 370 more properties in remote areas north of Fort St. John Monday as winds whipped up the 4,660-square-kilometre Donnie Creek blaze.

The BC Wildfire Service says more than 140 people are working to contain the lightning-caused wildfire that was sparked on May 12, and is now surpassed in size by only the 2017 Plateau Fire at 5,210 square kilometres.

The service says winds responsible for the weekend trouble between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson aided firefighters on a separate blaze to the south, which prompted Thursday’s evacuation of the entire northeastern community of Tumbler Ridge.

Gusts there have kept the nearly 200-square-kilometre West Kiskatinaw River fire away from the threatened community of 2,400 located about 200 kilometres south of Fort St. John, although the evacuation order remains in effect.

Environment Canada is calling for showers in the northeast on Tuesday, with between five and 10 millimetres of rain in the Fort St. John area, although the weather office says there is also a risk of gusty winds and lightning.

In all, five wildfires of note are among more than 80 blazes throughout B.C.

That includes the stubborn 2.5-square-kilometre fire burning in steep terrain above Highway 4 on Vancouver Island, forcing the continued closure of the main route to Port Alberni, Tofino and Ucluelet.

A statement from the Ministry of Transportation on Monday says there’s no estimate for when the route might reopen, and an update on the condition of the highway is expected Tuesday.

It says the province is assessing slope conditions and the danger of trees and debris tumbling down to the route that’s been closed for a week.

Convoys of trucks are scheduled twice each day to deliver gas, food and other essential goods to the cut-off communities using a rough, four-hour detour. All other drivers are asked to travel only for essential purposes.

Wildfire updates in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia firefighters are using helicopters to scan a massive wildfire that’s still out of control in Shelburne County to find the best spots to battle the blaze.

Officials with the province’s Department of Natural Resources will be flying over the fire in southwest Nova Scotia this week and using infrared scanners to detect areas where firefighters should be dispatched.

The 235-square-kilometre Barrington Lake wildfire in Shelburne County is no longer growing but is still classified as out of control.

The wildfire has forced more than 6,000 people from their homes and destroyed 60 houses and cottages, as well as 150 other structures.

The province says there are 139 firefighters from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador and the United States fighting the flames.

Wildfire updates in Quebec

Thousands of Quebecers who were forced by out-of-control wildfires to evacuate their towns and cities are starting to return home as the situation improves.

Those returning home today include the approximately 7,500 residents of Chibougamau, 500 kilometres northwest of Quebec City, and several Indigenous communities.

Premier François Legault told a news conference Monday there should be fewer than 4,000 evacuees remaining by the end of the day, down from a peak of more than 13,500 on Friday.

He says the northwestern Quebec town of Lebel-sur-Quévillon remains under evacuation, as does Normétal, where firefighters managed on Sunday to contain a blaze that had come within 500 metres of the town.

More than 1,200 personnel – including domestic and foreign firefighters and Canadian Armed Forces members – were at work fighting 38 blazes.

This remained a fraction of the 117 wildfires raging Sunday across the province’s “intensive zone,” covering most of the inhabited territory. So far, wildfires have burned more than 740,000 hectares in the zone, which is more than 300 times the average at this time of year for the past decade.

Wildfire updates in Ontario

The number of active wildfires in northern Ontario continues to grow.

There are 68 active wildfires in northern Ontario Monday including 28 in the northeast and 39 in the northwest.

There were 62 active wildfires Sunday.

Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources says there is heavy smoke across the northeast due to fires in the province and in Quebec, with the smoke travelling as far north as Timmins and south past Sudbury.

Wildfire updates elsewhere in the country

Federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says some work and student visas will get extensions if people have been affected by wildfires.

Fraser says Ottawa wants to make sure these disasters don’t displace people who are on a specific kind of work or study permit.

Ottawa also plans to replace – for free – passports, permanent residency cards, citizenship documents and other travel documents that may have been destroyed by flames.