US AND CANADA ON RED ALERT AS FIRE SEASON FEARS ARE REALISED
▶ Experts say much of western North America is a tinderbox after record-breaking heatwaves
Firefighters in the western US and Canada are bracing themselves for what they say could be the deadliest bushfire season yet.
A deadly, record-breaking heatwave has left the drought-stricken Pacific North-west region with tinderbox conditions, worsened by years of poor land management.
More than 300 bushfires are blazing across British Columbia alone, and about 121,000 hectares have burned across six states in the western US.
“Last year was very destructive and this year we’re expecting another very active fire season,” said US Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea.
He said the traditional season has grown so long, officials now simply called it “fire year”.
At least two people were killed when a blaze swept through Lytton, British Columbia, last month, days after the temperature there hit a Canadian record of 49.6°C.
Across the border, in Washington and Oregon, hundreds died in a heatwave. In Death Valley, the mercury hit 54°C.
The climate crisis, a yearslong drought and relentless development in areas abutting wildlands have left experts and officials in dread.
“We didn’t need a crystal ball to see this coming,” said Jennifer Balch, an associate professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder who specialises in fire ecology.
As deadly as last year was, with 58,950 bushfires burning more than four million hectares, experts say this summer could be worse. A lack of rain is the main reason the fires are so widespread.
“This is the most exceptional drought we’ve ever shown on the map in the western US,” said Brian Fuchs, a climate scientist who creates weather charts for the US Drought Monitor.
“Droughts like this really amplify the fire season.”
Water in the Hoover Dam reservoir, the largest in the US, is at its lowest level. A harsh drought persists in Canada, where the environment agency is forecasting “well above-average wildfire severity” in some regions.
Long-standing policies have played a role in the intensity and spread of the bushfires.
“Our land management practices, including fire suppression during calmer weather conditions, have created a massive accumulation of fuel and forest and rangeland conditions that are not resistant or resilient to wildfire,” said John Bailey, a forest fire expert at Oregon State University.
In northern California, firefighters are already struggling to contain a major bushfire along the Nevada border.
The Beckwourth Complex Fire, which has destroyed homes and engulfed almost 35,000 hectares, doubled in size at the weekend.
A study in 2018 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated one in three US homes was now in a forested area, raising the risk of fires being started accidentally.
Controlled burns are more difficult to conduct near residential areas.
“Wildfire problems will not abate if recent housing growth trends continue,” it said.
With the parched landscape being a disaster waiting to happen, officials put extra resources into educating the public about fire safety.
“We conduct training yearround,” said Christine McMorrow of Cal Fire, California’s state fire department.
“We have to increase education efforts to residents about defensible space, home fire safety and evacuation preparation,” she said.
Evacuation plans are of prime concern to the authorities.
In 2018, a blaze ripped through a town north of Sacramento, California, trapping the residents of Paradise, and killing 85 people.
Mr Florea, the US Forest Service spokesman, said communities that adapt to fires have a better chance of averting destruction.
But it is federal land management practices, rather than communities, that have played a large part in the ferocity and scale of the blazes.