Growing wildfires across Western Canada displacing thousands

Growing wildfires across Western Canada displacing thousands | Insurance Business Canada

Catastrophe & Flood

Growing wildfires across Western Canada displacing thousands

Evacuation orders and alerts issued

Catastrophe & Flood

By
Gia Snape

Thousands of people in Western Canada remain displaced from their homes as wildfires threaten their communities, triggering evacuation orders and alerts.

In British Columbia, a widening area around the northeastern community of Fort Nelson is under evacuation, with the Parker Lake wildfire burning close by and the larger Patry Creek wildfire raging to the northwest.

Both blazes are listed with the BC Wildfire Service as “wildfires of note,” with Parker Lake measuring 84 square kilometres in size and the Patry Creek blaze covering a whopping 464 square kilometres.

In Alberta, a 209 square kilometre blaze has chased more than 6,600 residents of southern Fort McMurray from their homes.

In 2016, a similar wildfire destroyed much of the oilsands community and its recovery took years.

And just north of Cranberry Portage, Manitoba, an out-of-control wildfire measuring 316 square kilometres has forced the area’s roughly 500-plus locals to flee their homes.