This story includes details on the impacts of climate change that may be difficult for some readers. If you are feeling overwhelmed by this crisis situation here is a list of resources on how to cope with fears and feelings about the scope and pace of the climate crisis.
After weeks of searing heat, hundreds of wildfires are now burning across British Columbia and Alberta, sending thousands fleeing ahead of the flames, filling communities with lung-choking smoke and eyewitnesses with aching worry.
British Columbia is currently battling more than 430 wildfires, most of them believed to have been caused by lightning.
“Yesterday was a windy day which produced exceptional lightning in B.C.. with over 38,000 strikes in total, with most occurring in the northeast and the remainder in the southern central part of the province,” writes the BC Wildfire Service in its latest provincial situation report. “This total added to the over 20,000 lightning strikes from the previous 24 hours.” Of the 430 fires currently burning, 107 started within the last 24 hours and 60% are currently classified as out-of-control.
In the West Kootenay, wildfires sparked by a thunderstorm that romped through the area last week continue to wreak havoc in the lives of residents in the Slocan Valley. Cliff-hugging Highway 6, which runs along the east side of Slocan Lake, is currently closed for a 12-kilometre stretch due to wildfires still burning on both sides of the road. Less than two kilometres now separate the blazes—the Aylwin Creek wildfire, currently 121 hectares, and the Komonko Creek wildfire, 534 hectares, reports Global News.
Five kilometres north of these blazes, Silverton (population 200) is currently under evacuation alert, with more than 100 individual properties along Slocan Lake under evacuation orders.
Long-term Slocan Valley resident Laura Tiberti, 77, was out dog-walking with a friend last Wednesday night in New Denver (population 520, five kilometres north of Silverton) when the storm struck.
“The lights went out in town, and 15 minutes later, we saw the mountainside across the lake turn red,” Tiberti told The Energy Mix. “Holy s–t, that thing is exploding up there,” Tiberti recalled telling her friend.
The two women were witnessing the outbreak of a wildfire near Nemo Creek (now roughly 800 hectares), on the west side of Slocan Lake. The Aylwin and Komonko Creek fires would have started around the same time.
Jan Fraser, age 83, another long-time resident of Slocan Valley who now lives in Nelson, said she is deeply concerned for the well-being of her family members and friends whose lives remain deeply rooted in the 100-kilometre-long valley.
That includes Fraser’s 61-year-old son, Marc, whose home in Winlaw is surrounded by highly flammable cedar trees, and her granddaughter, Emma, 37, whose rental home and fledgling clothing design business near Lemon Creek are both now threatened by flames.
“They’re not sleeping. They’re anxious,” Fraser told the Mix. Emma is among the hundreds now under evacuation alert in the immediate area, threatened by the Ponderosa Fire complex.
Feeling the Crisis In Your ‘Heart and Gut’
Fraser testified to her emotional confusion as she recognized this week how the climate crisis ceased to be something she understands—and is troubled by—just intellectually, now that her own loved ones are threatened. The wildfires in the Slocan Valley she now feels in her heart and her gut, Fraser said.
“Why do I feel this difference, and where is my empathy when a climate disaster is further away?” she asked. “I am reminded why so often we hear about Indigenous peoples talking about the power of story—stories being how the near and the far get connected.”
In a by no means exhaustive tally of woe, in other parts of B.C., Williams Lake (population 11,000) remains under a local state of emergency with the River Valley wildfire, which erupted Sunday evening within city limits, still burning. The latest reports put the blaze at more than 40 hectares and still out of control. The fire is believed to have been sparked when a tree fell across a power line, reports Maple Ridge News, citing Rob Warnock, director of the city’s Emergency Operation Centre.
While crews gained “significant ground” against the fire on Monday, evening thunderstorms overnight failed to deliver much in the way of rain, but produced lightning strikes which sparked new fires, Williams Lake Mayor Surinderpal Rathor told CBC News. Monday night also saw 21 residents from a long-term care home in the path of the fire being relocated to a safer place.
News of the fire in Williams Lake came just hours after the Cariboo Regional District Emergency Operations Centre ordered the historic town of Barkerville and many residents in the Bowron Lake region to immediately evacuate ahead of the then-13.5 square kilometre Antler Creek blaze, CBC writes. That notice came just hours after Wells, located 180 kilometres east of Prince George, ordered all residents to immediately evacuate out of the path of the same fire.
Some 1,000 people were forced to flee the Barkerville/Bowron/Wells region, 70% of them tourists, reports Global News.
As of Monday evening, the Antler Fire had more than doubled in size, to 32 kilometres, and was only three kilometres from Wells and Barkerville, reports CBC.
Meanwhile, 400 kilometres to the south, Ashcroft, Spences Bridge, and Cache Creek remain on evacuation alert as the monster Shetland Creek fire in the Venables valley, west of Kamloops, continues to grow. It is currently estimated to be 19,941 hectares.
Three Major Fires in 7 Years
“It’s been very stressful. This is our third major fire since 2017, the third time the village has gone on alert,” Ashcroft Mayor Barbara Roden told CTV Calgary on Monday.
As local ranchers continue to try to move livestock to safer ground, Ashcroft fire rescue chief Josh White praised the efforts of local firefighting crews working in extreme heat and strong winds.
“They’re doing a magnificent job. I’m very thankful for them,” White said.
At one point on Monday, crews had to be pulled back from the Shetland fire because of the risk they might get trapped there.
The wildfire situation is also extremely volatile in the McBride region, 200 kilometres southeast of Prince George, with evacuation alerts being upgraded to orders Monday afternoon ahead of the Beaver River wildfire.
600,000 hectares have burned in B.C. to date, more than double the five-year average, and leaving decadal averages smouldering in the dust.
“We’ve burned more in the past five years [in B.C.] than we have in the previous six or seven decades,” UBC forest ecology professor Lori Daniels told the Globe and Mail.
Alberta Evacuees Flee to B.C.
Meanwhile, B.C. is receiving evacuees from Alberta, as well. The latest reports put the number of wildfire evacuees in Alberta north of 30,000, with numbers soaring in the wake of the sudden evacuation of Jasper (pop. 10,000) and its namesake national park, which at this time of year becomes home to thousands of tourists. Thousands of residents and visitors were forced to flee west along Highway 16 on Monday night, when several “extremely, extremely aggressive” wildfires approaching from the northeast and south roared into the area simultaneously.
“People were forced to flee west into British Columbia with little notice over mountain roads through darkness, soot, and ash,” reports CBC News.
At the time of the evacuation order, the fires were estimated to be about six hours from the town. Speaking with media on Tuesday, Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland described the extreme stress of the nighttime evacuation, given the presence of many small children, some already asleep, seniors, and visitors unfamiliar with the area.
Adding to the complexity of the situation, B.C. was swiftly overwhelmed with displaced people seeking accommodation, with the closest community to the conflagration, the village of Valemount, declaring itself at capacity as dawn broke Tuesday.
Thousands of evacuees have now been directed to “make a wide U-turn and head home if they needed a place to stay,” via detours through Prince George or Kamloops, CTV Edmonton reports. That instruction owed not to inhospitality, but rather the fact that northern B.C. is struggling to house its own evacuees.
“The issue is the severity of wildfire activity and evacuations in B.C. proper,” Stephen Lacroix, managing director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, told a video media conference.
“An unknown number of people hiking in the backcountry have been instructed to reach a trailhead and contact Parks Canada as soon as they are able,” reports the Edmonton Journal.
Reception centres were being set up in Grande Prairie and Calgary as wildfires engulfed swathes of the province. The current tide of Alberta evacuees includes the 5,500 members of Little Red River Cree Nation, who had to flee their homes in the communities of Fox Garden, Garden River, and John D’Or Prairie over the weekend.
Little Red River is now completely evacuated, its members fleeing the advance of a wildfire that is part of the Semo Complex, an inferno currently estimated at roughly 96,000 hectares.
“Yeah, we’re scared to lose it all,” said John D’Or Prairie resident Jason Saovord, who had fled to safety in Edmonton with loved ones when he spoke the CBC on Sunday.
Weeks of Extreme Heat Feed the Flames
In Alberta and British Columbia alike, extreme heat (and in Northern Alberta, drought) have been feeding the flames, especially in recent weeks. Saturday saw 14 B.C. communities breaking or matching daily high-temperature records, with beleaguered Lytton—which continues to languish, substantial rebuilding nowhere in sight after its incineration by wildfire on June 30, 2021—reaching 41.2℃.
“Temperature records also fell in the B.C. communities of Cranbrook, Merritt, Princeton, Trail, and Vernon, with all five reaching at least 36℃, reports the Canadian Press.
Further illustrating the intensity of the ongoing heatwave: “Lytton and Osoyoos have both smashed their record for the longest stretch of 35-plus-degree days ever observed,” the Weather Network writes.
“Both communities are on track to rack up 18 consecutive days at or above the 35-degree mark by this week, a feat unmatched even by the infamous 2021 heat dome event.”
Cooling temperatures are, at long last, in the cards for many parts of British Columbia, as well as for northwestern parts of Alberta, as the mercury drops, at least for a few days. The southern parts of Alberta, however, may see hot conditions persist through much of the rest of the week, reports CBC.
The impact of wildfire smoke remains considerable and dangerous. Edmonton activated its extreme weather response for poor air quality on Saturday, a protocol that included free distribution of N95 masks at city facilities, reports Global News.
In B.C., a special air quality statement covered half the province as of Tuesday afternoon, with the Okanagan, Kootenays, Cariboo, and Peace River regions included in warnings to protect against wildfire smoke inhalation.
Oilsands Imperiled
As of mid-Tuesday, Alberta Wildfire was reporting 175 active fires in the province. Eight of them—all designated out-of-control—are currently burning in a ring about Fort McMurray (population 17,000).
While no wildfires yet threaten Fort McMurray itself, at least one, a 28,000-hectare fire to the northeast, recently forced Suncor to “curtail production from its 231,000 barrel-per-day Firebag oilsands site,” reports Bloomberg. About 500,000 barrels per day of oilsands extraction are now said to be within 10 kilometres of an out-of-control blaze, with another 1.2 million barrels per day within a 20-kilometre radius of a wildfire threat.
Late last week, MEG Energy Corp reported evacuating non-essential personnel from its Christina Lake oilsands site, while Imperial Oil confirmed it was moving to reduce staffing at its Kearl oilsands mine.
Oilsands producers are watching the situation closely, with all remaining personnel on high alert as “the danger of more fires in the region remained at extreme levels,” reports the Globe and Mail.
Natural gas extraction is also at risk, with “the production equivalent of about 30,000 barrels a day of oil” now within 10 kilometres of an out-of-control fire, writes Bloomberg, citing Alberta Energy Regulator production data.
In latest news, wildfire MWF047 (105,515 hectares) and MWF077 (19,112 hectares) are both “just under seven kilometres away from industrial facilities,” reports CBC, citing Alberta Wildfire.
Despite the human suffering and anxiety, and risk to industry, Alberta’s 2024 wildfire season is “far milder” than last year’s “record-breaking onslaught,” notes Bloomberg.
“The province has seen 690 fires this year, compared with 840 at this point in 2023. The difference in area burned is even wider, with about 183,000 hectares affected so far in 2024, less than a 10th of the total by this point last year.”
