Spaniards Fighting Fires in Canada: “It’s a Huge Fire and They’ll Burn All Summer” | climate and environment

Shibugamao It’s a Canadian town full of single-family homes – with their own lawns and garages – nestled among many lakes and lush forests. Over the past two weeks, this idyllic place has become a base of operations for hundreds of Spaniards – forestry technicians and firefighters – who, far from enjoying the scenery, have been sent to Quebec to deal with fires of unknown size. “What we are seeing in Canada is a level of fires that we are not used to. They are monsters…

Shibugamao It’s a Canadian town full of single-family homes – with their own lawns and garages – nestled among many lakes and lush forests. Over the past two weeks, this idyllic place has become a base of operations for hundreds of Spaniards – forestry technicians and firefighters – who, far from enjoying the scenery, have been sent to Quebec to deal with fires of unknown size. “What we are seeing in Canada is a level of fire that we are not used to. They are bigger fire monsters than we have seen in Spain, and they will burn all summer long,” Angela Iglesias, the Spanish service liaison officer sent to help the North American country, explains by phone from that city. The smoke from the region reached Spain last Monday, and on Thursday they returned to their respective autonomous communities to join, from July 1, the extinction on the peninsula.

The team left Spain on June 14 and, after rejoining the Canadian command, began three days later attacking what is known as the Fire 379 — there are 461 active fires, 237 of which are out of control, according to data from the Canadian Wildfire Center (CBF).CIFFC, for its English abbreviation) -. It is a huge fire with an area of ​​about 50,000 hectares. To get an idea, the largest amount we had in Spain was around 31,000, notes Iglesias, who is also the head of the Forest Fire Defense Department at the Ministry of Ecological Transition. “And it is not the largest in the area, 100 kilometers from where we are there is another area of ​​about 150,000 hectares, half of what was burned in our country last year, and it is one of the worst years in the historical series,” he continued.

Hundreds of still-active fires stem from a major thunderstorm that devastated several Canadian states in early June. “Lightning is typically responsible for half of all Canadian fires,” explains Ferran Dalmão Rovira, a forestry expert from Spain. Those natural electrical sparks ignited many fires in hard-to-reach forest areas, making them even more difficult to attack. The problem is that, from there, secondary sources are created: for example, when a spark, pineapple, or other incandescent substance is lifted by the wind and moved by the air current a few kilometers until it falls, creating flames tens of kilometers away. So far this year, the country has suffered some 2,880 fires, burning about 7.2 million hectares, surpassing the worst year in the series – 7.1 million in 1995 – when we were still in June.

To deal with this exceptional situation, exacerbated by the high temperatures caused by global warming, Canada has requested assistance from the European Civil Protection Mechanism. It’s usually complicated on these summer dates, because there are also fires in Europe, but the rains in June made it easier for many countries to cheer up. Portugal sent 140 people, and France did the same with a hundred, the same number as Spain. Among them – according to the Ministry of Ecological Transition – 22 from the Ministry itself, 26 from Castilla-La Mancha, 25 from Madrid, 16 from Murcia and 11 from Catalonia. Most of them are forest firefighters, although there are technical experts in extinction.

They all encountered some fire beasts that they had never seen before. “Here we are in an area with many virgin forests, with very dense trees, up to 12 meters high, which creates tremendous fuel continuity. Plus, there are few entrances, because they are inhospitable areas, so the method of extinction is very different. , either by air or by forest paths that open up as we go,” Iglesias points out. “These are very strong fires that have been brewing for a month, so they are already considering that they will continue to burn throughout the summer,” he continues.

What is the difference with extinction in Spain? “The biggest difference is the size of the fire, because here there is much more fuel, those lush forests with trees 12 meters high. Another is that here there are very few inlets, they are huge woods with no forest paths. The third is the availability of water is great, As a third of the map in this area consists of rivers, streams, reservoirs and ponds, so motorized pumps can be used to put out fires directly, which is difficult in Spain, “he points out. “Another thing is that here we are dealing with forests far from populated areas, while in our country there are houses in the mountains, and it is not the same to shoot when there are no people threatened than when people die,” he continued.

With these characteristics, every day for Spaniards in Quebec began with a helicopter trip into the fire-threatening environment—a huge swath of mountains about the size of Asturias—where only one forest path crosses the territory from north to south. “It’s rare in Spain that we don’t have any of these trails within 10 kilometres,” says Iglesias. Teams get there with their vehicles and attack a specific point of fire with automatic pumps. At the end of the day, the helicopter takes them back to their original points.

After 12 days of hard work, the teams have to return, as the peninsula’s most dangerous season begins. “There are real fire monsters here, far larger than anything we’ve seen before. We have a monstrous education that we’re going to implement in Spain,” the technician concludes. This Thursday they are back.

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