[imagesource:councilonforeignrelations]

The fires in Canada are raging on, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. At one point, the smoke was so intense it was turning New York City into an apocalyptic scene, with people near and far away from the actual fires choking when they stepped outside.

At the beginning of June, a fifth team of 200 highly experienced South African firefighters were sent to the Canadian province of Alberta to help contain and drive back raging wildfires sweeping across the region.

This season has seen unprecedented wildfires, with Alberta experiencing 550 wildfires already, causing substantial damage to property and infrastructure and displacing thousands of people. In numerous regions, evacuation orders have been issued.

Besides our own firefighters working on the embers and flames, hundreds of other international firefighters are also in the area helping overwhelmed Canadians with the complex task of controlling the, frankly, uncontrolled blazes.

The Citizen has word from our firefighters on the frontline:

“In Canada we’re having to dig to reach fires smoldering deep underground,” said Ditiro Moseki, a firefighter from South Africa deployed to Western Canada.

“You have to keep going back to make sure it’s out,” explained team leader Ongezwa Nonjiji.

“In South Africa, most of the time, if it rains, you known the fire is probably out, but here in Canada after it rains you see smoke again the next morning,” she said.

She said that the fires are able to spread at an alarming rate as an ember can travel several kilometres in the wind and ignite a new fire somewhere else. Even healthy new trees, which are full of moisture and don’t usually catch fire that easily, are bursting into flames:

Cindy Alfonso, a firefighter from Costa Rica, said she was surprised that healthy “green trees are burning.”

“Here, conifers are burning (even if slightly damp) because their resin is very flammable,” she explained. The sap acts as an accelerant for fast-moving blazes, with flames twice the height of trees capable of jumping over roads and other obstacles.

The fire is so persistent that the leader of a French team deployed in Quebec, Eric Flores, told AFP he had never seen anything like it:

His team was busy mopping up smoldering duff to prevent blowups when they were suddenly trapped by a fire that flared 50 meters (165 feet) behind them in a green patch of forest.

“As the fire burns underground along roots it can go places that you don’t suspect. It’s very unpredictable and it can flare up very quickly,” he said in a telephone interview from the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region of northern Quebec.

“It’s painstaking work, we advance meter by meter,” he said.

The fire is travelling UNDERGROUND – is this hell on Earth?

It’s incredible how these firefighters are managing. They’re forced to reckon with not only thick and noxious smoke swirling around them along with swarms of biting black flies and mosquitoes, but also carrying heavy equipment on their backs, several kilometres into the dense forest before reaching their area of attack.

Once there, they have to contend with a “wall of flames 100 meters wide, twice the height of the trees”.

The scary thing is, the fires began early thanks to an exceptionally hot, dry spring and they’re only expected to quell after the summer, which should peak in July or August, or even well into Autumn.

This unprecedented fire season heralds the climate challenges that await Canada in the future.

The climate consequences are devastating as the boreal forest releases 10 to 20 times more carbon per unit of area burned than other ecosystems. By releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, these fires in turn contribute to global warming in a vicious cycle.

It’s become so out of hand that Canadian authorities are even deciding to just let it burn.

Hopefully, our pro firefighters are keeping everyone’s spirits up:

[source:citizen]