Canadian wildfires made forced 39,000 people to evacuate their homes in British Colombia, according to The Guardian. The Australian government is sending fifty firefighters, and Canada deployed Military Aircraft.
According to the National Defense Department, The Canadian military sent two military aircraft and five choppers to evacuate and help the people. As the authorities stated, seventeen thousand had already been evacuated and around 24,000 people still need to be evacuated, including eleven thousand people from the town of Williams Lake.
Watch some video coverage of the fire fight below.
Fire chief officer Kevin Skrepnek's statement
In a conference call, the fire chief of British Colombia, Kevin Skrepnek noted that the Australian air force would arrive to help on Wednesday. The two requests were made by the Canadian Province to the federal government regarding military support to battle the wildfire, according to Ralph Goodale, minister for Federal public safety. He also added that the requests could have been worse.
Reuters reported that that 162 separate fires were reported across the region. By Sunday, that number had dropped to 159, but still the area in serious danger. “In a few cases, it is because we had amalgamated some of these fires together,” Skrepnek explained. The decrease in the number of total fires in most parts indicates the progress.
Fund required to handle the situation in British Colombia
According to Skrepnek, the wildfire destroyed the 465,000 acres (188,000 hectares) of land, which comes at a cost of $70.92 million loss to the province. British Colombia announced the requirement of $78.95 million emergency funds. Canadian humanitarian charitable organization will provide stipends of $470 for every person who was displaced.
Logging companies, like Forestry producers West Fraser Timber Co, Norbord Inc, etc., have shut down the work until the fire is under control. Pipeline operator Enbridge Inc, the natural gas supplier, also closed the operations, Bloomberg reported. On Monday, Tolko Industries Ltd said that many employees and resources in the city of Kamloops had been evacuated and 30,000 cattle suffered from the fire.
The police were helping the people and informing them about the loss of their properties in the fire. In 2016 massive fires occurred in the Alberta region and more than eighty thousand people were evacuated.
