A provincial minister reported on Sunday that the number of out-of-control wildfires in Quebec decreased as firefighters in the Canadian province gained the upper hand in some areas.
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Quebec Minister of Natural Resources Maite Blanchette Vezina told reporters that the number of out-of-control fires in the eastern province fell to 44 from 72 on Saturday. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, Canada is experiencing the worst spring fire season ever, with 431 active fires as of Sunday, up five from Saturday.
On Monday, approximately 1,200 firefighters, including more than 100 from France and some from other provinces, will be combating fires throughout Quebec.
“With the resources we received from France and New Brunswick, the situation is safer,” Blanchette Vezina said, adding that authorities were not yet prepared to send a large number of evacuees home.
On Saturday, a meteorologist for the federal government forecasted that Quebec could receive moderate precipitation on Tuesday in some fire-affected areas. In Alberta, the provincial government issued a warning that fires were becoming more unpredictable and were closing in on the evacuated community of Edson, located 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of the provincial capital Edmonton.
In a Sunday online update, local officials reported that a fire south of Edson has grown to encompass 204,000 hectares (504,095 acres). Yellowhead County’s chief administrative officer, Luc Mercier, stated, “Last Wednesday, we believed we could close down our emergency control centre, but by Friday, the fires had gotten so out of control that this plan was discarded.”
British Columbia is also fighting a significant number of fires, including one that has burned within four kilometres of the community of Tumbler Ridge in northeastern British Columbia. The shifting winds have aided firefighters in battling the conflagration in the Rocky Mountain foothills, but Sunday’s warmer and drier conditions may cause the fire to spread, according to Karley Desrosiers, information officer for the British Columbia Wildfire Service.
