Speaker 1: A provincial state of emergency has been declared in British
Speaker 1: Columbia as a series of wildfires rage across western Canada,
Speaker 1: forcing thousands of people from their homes. The province's premier
Speaker 1: described it as a fast moving and threatening situation that
Speaker 1: seen homes and other buildings destroyed. The summer Land region
Speaker 1: is among the worst affected, with a fast moving fire
Speaker 1: there doubling in size since first breaking out on Friday,
Speaker 1: Officials the blaze remained out of control. Several Canadian provinces
Speaker 1: have battled blazes this year, fueled by hot, dry weather
Speaker 1: in densely forested areas. Ravi Palmer, British Columbia's Minister of Forests,
Speaker 1: outlined the scale of the.
Speaker 2: Fires without a doubt, we are facing some very significant
Speaker 2: challenges here in British Columbia. We have over one hundred
Speaker 2: after fires, and yesterday evening we had a new fire start,
Speaker 2: as you noted, just outside of Summerland, British Columbia, or
Speaker 2: fifteen kilometers away from the town. And what we saw
Speaker 2: was something that we've never seen in British Columbia, and
Speaker 2: that is the intensity of this fire. When I was
Speaker 2: briefed by my officials they described it as a bomb
Speaker 2: going off, and what we saw was a fire that
Speaker 2: we tried to attack initially grow from fifty hectors to
Speaker 2: about one thousand hectares in just under an hour. Challenging
Speaker 2: circumstances indeed, and other.
Speaker 1: Particular communities that you're concerned for.
Speaker 2: You know, the southern half of the province is extremely dry.
Speaker 2: There are very hot conditions right now, and without a doubt,
Speaker 2: with all of those combined with the impacts of climate
Speaker 2: change as well as wind gusts and potentially even dry
Speaker 2: lightning in the forecast, it makes it very challenging, in
Speaker 2: particular in our wildland urban interface areas, which is what
Speaker 2: we saw yesterday where we saw a fire began in
Speaker 2: the forest and quickly impact community. That led to an
Speaker 2: evacuation of over fifteen thousand residents of summer Land, British
Speaker 2: Columbia and the surrounding region.
Speaker 1: And there's a state of emergency in place. Now, what
Speaker 1: does that unlock in terms of resources, That's a great.
Speaker 2: Question, provincials. Dative Emergency provides the Government of British Columbia
Speaker 2: with extraordinary powers to be able to put travel restrictions
Speaker 2: in place into areas like summerline British Columbia, the ability
Speaker 2: to be able to procure more resources in the form
Speaker 2: of property to be able to fight fires, and also
Speaker 2: placement of evacuees, given that we have now about twenty
Speaker 2: thousand British Columbians that have been placed outside of their
Speaker 2: communities because of the impacts of fires. Again, it is
Speaker 2: extraordinary powers for an extraordinary challenging situation here in British Columbia.
Speaker 1: And you're the in charge of the forest. What have
Speaker 1: you been doing to prepare for these kind of risks
Speaker 1: and to try and mitigate the future risks?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a challenging situation here in British Columbia. I
Speaker 2: am immensely proud of our BC Wildfare Service. We are
Speaker 2: a world class organization. Over the course of the last
Speaker 2: number of years, we have grown this organization, doubled its
Speaker 2: size and naturally taken it from a seasonal based organization
Speaker 2: into a full year round operation. We know, given the
Speaker 2: challenges of climate change, we're needing to adapt. Every single
Speaker 2: year we're doing more welfare mitigation work, cultural burns, prescribe burns,
Speaker 2: and a whole host of other measures to able to
Speaker 2: deal with the challenges In many cases, Lauren, most of
Speaker 2: the fires that occur here in British Columbia are maintained
Speaker 2: within ten hectors. But what we saw with this fire
Speaker 2: in particular was something we've never seen before, and it's
Speaker 2: a new dilemma that we're dealing with here in British Columbia,
Speaker 2: and I know my colleagues are dealing with down south
Speaker 2: in the United States as well.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what the causes normally are for fires.
Speaker 1: I mean, in Europe we've seen people arrested and the
Speaker 1: suggestion that people have been setting the fires is that
Speaker 1: the case in Canada, or they're generally accidental.
Speaker 2: Well, this fire is still under investigation, but what we
Speaker 2: typically experience in the case of British Columbia most fire
Speaker 2: seasons is well over majority of our fires are occurred
Speaker 2: by dry lightning strikes in many parts of the province,
Speaker 2: and then we do have a proportion that are human caused.
Speaker 2: But I think it's really important to note that human caused.
Speaker 2: It's not just someone flicking a cigarette, but could be
Speaker 2: someone driving an ATV in the back roads of British
Speaker 2: Columbia or a whole host of other things. It's a
Speaker 2: very wide ranging category. But answer your question, the majority
Speaker 2: of fires that occur in British Columbia are actually occurring
Speaker 2: by lightning strikes.
Speaker 1: So why the fire is spreading so rapidly. Mathur Bobone
Speaker 1: is co director of the Center for Wildfire co Existence
Speaker 1: at the University of British Columbia.
Speaker 3: There's a combination of things that allow a fire to
Speaker 3: grow the way that we've been seeing in the last
Speaker 3: few days. Part of it is really just very dry
Speaker 3: and abundant fuels and so that's dead to breed on
Speaker 3: the forest floor, and plants and trees live plants and
Speaker 3: trees very hot, dry conditions with low humidity and strong winds.
Speaker 3: And then in some cases, you know, there's terrain that
Speaker 3: can kind of amplify fire spread when it starts, and
Speaker 3: so what happens is it allows these fires to really
Speaker 3: quickly transition from a surface fire to a crown fire
Speaker 3: where it's actually moving through you know, the crowns of
Speaker 3: the trees. In an extreme cases like we in summerline,
Speaker 3: these these fires can actually start generating their own weather
Speaker 3: where they're generating winds and in cases you know, throwing
Speaker 3: embers and debris kilometers ahead of the actual flames, which
Speaker 3: allows these fires to spread really quickly and aggressively, and
Speaker 3: at that and at that point, you know, it's very
Speaker 3: likely that they're going to exceed the ability of fire
Speaker 3: suppression organizations to actually contain them.