More Than 16,000 Evacuated as Wildfire Rages Outside Halifax

 

More Than 16,000 Evacuated as Wildfire Rages Outside Halifax

 

Wildfires in Nova Scotia have heightened the sense of unease as blazes also burn in the west of the country.

 

By Dan Bilefsky and Meagan Campbell

Dan Bilefsky reported from Montreal, and Meagan Campbell from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/world/canada/wildfire-halifax-nova-scotia.html

May 30, 2023

 

As wildfires buffeted western Canada on Tuesday, a blaze on the opposite end of the country in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has forced the evacuation of more than 16,000 people, compounding the national anxiety over out-of-control wildfires upending peoples’ lives.

 

Video footage of downtown Halifax late Sunday showed a dense plume of smoke enveloping the city, the sun an apocalyptic red, as a fire northwest of the city raged, spreading the smoke. The blaze broke out in an area that is about 15 miles from Halifax and that is home to many suburban professionals and families.

 

Wildfires have broken out throughout western Canada, including British Columbia, and hardest hit has been Alberta, an oil- and gas-producing province sometimes referred to as “the Texas of the North.” Earlier this month, the province declared a state of emergency.

 

Climate research suggests that heat and drought associated with global warming are major reasons for bigger and stronger fires.

 

In Nova Scotia, there have been 195 wildfires so far this year compared with 153 in all of 2022. But officials said the blazes had intensified this year.

 

The wildfires on both Canadian coasts have ushered in a feeling of foreboding. Fear and unease have settled over Halifax, a normally serene maritime city on Canada’s Atlantic coast that was founded in 1749 and served as a British naval and military base.

 

The city authorities have declared a state of emergency, and on Monday, provincial government officials said that an estimated 200 buildings and structures had been damaged by the fire. The authorities said on Tuesday that so far, no deaths, injuries or missing people had been reported.

 

Heidi MacInnes, the owner of Restless Pines Farm and a resident of Hammonds Plains, in the area affected by the fire, said it had been harrowing to evacuate her home with her partner, her 22-year-old daughter and 57 horses.

 

“There were burning embers falling in my driveway,” she said. “There’s no time to talk to anybody about anything — it’s just action.” She said she feared losing her home.

 

 

Ms. MacInnes put out a call on social media for help transporting the horses, and was heartened by all the offers of buckets of hay, water and horse transportation trailers, along with rotisserie chicken to help feed the people helping her.

 

“I guess the most important thing to take away from this is the value of people helping each other in times like this,” she said.

 

On Tuesday, the Nova Scotia provincial government’s Department of Natural Resources and Renewables said that the wildfire had affected an estimated 788 hectares, or about 1,950 acres, and remained “out of control.”

 

“This is a rapidly moving fire,” the department said in a statement. “People are asked to please remain away from the area.” Provincial officials warned that the conditions were also dangerous for firefighters because of strong winds.

 

An investigation is underway into the cause of the fire. But Scott Tingley, manager of forest protection for the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables in Nova Scotia, said at a news conference on Monday that the authorities suspected that recent fires were “human caused.”

 

More than 200 firefighters have been mobilized to battle the fire, and members of Canada’s Department of National Defense have also been dispatched to the scene.

 

The fire is also affecting daily lives. More than a dozen schools have closed, while campfires have been banned.

 

Canadian health officials have warned that smoke can cause symptoms including sore and watery eyes, coughing, dizziness, chest pains and heart palpitations.

 

In Alberta, as of May 19, roughly 29,000 people had been forced from their homes by the recent wildfires, though most have returned to their homes in recent days as the fires have diminished in scale and scope.

 

The blazes in Alberta have revived bad memories of 2016, when a raging wildfire destroyed 2,400 buildings in Fort McMurray, the heart of Canada’s oil sands region with the third-largest reserves of oil in the world.

 

In 2021, British Columbia was the site of one of Canada’s worst wildfires in recent decades, when blazes decimated the tiny community of Lytton after temperatures there reached a record 49.6 degrees Celsius, or 121.3 Fahrenheit.

 

Dan Bilefsky is an international correspondent, based in Montreal. He was previously based in London, Paris, Prague and New York. He was part of the team that won the 2022 George Polk Award for an investigation of the assassination of Haiti’s president. He is the author of the true crime thriller “The Last Job.” @DanBilefsky