'Zombie' Blazes And Drought: Canada Headed For Another Brutal Fire Season
Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published February 23, 2024 | 10:40 AM
Montreal, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Feb, 2024) Beneath the ground in Western Canada, dozens of so-called "zombie fires" that started last year are still burning.
And even though it's the dead of winter, the lack of snow this year is compounding ongoing drought conditions, leaving Canadians already bracing for another brutal forest fire season.
"We are having an exceptional winter after an exceptional summer," laments Josee St-Onge, a spokesperson for Alberta firefighters.
It's a never-ending struggle. Even in bone-chilling temperatures, Canadian firefighters are still hard at work battling nearly 150 fires.
This year there are 10 to 12 times more zombie fires burning in Western Canada than usual. They smolder beneath the surface of the boreal forest through the winter, sustained by layers of dried peat and organic matter.
Eradicating them is painstaking work. They are difficult to detect -- only letting out wisps of smoke -- and require deep scraping of the ground to expose the humus, or all the decomposed leaves and other plant material compacted into an up to 80-centimeter (31-inch) layer that burns slowly.
In Alberta, the government on Tuesday declared an early start to wildfire season, which normally starts March 1. In addition to zombie fires from last year, authorities are also fighting new blazes that have sprung up this year.
In British Columbia, a record number of fires are currently active.
"Normally at this time of year, we might have seven or eight fires burning, but we have 91," said Forrest Tower, a spokesperson for firefighters in Canada's westernmost province, which historically has been the region most affected by fires.
Zombie fires are especially feared by firefighters because they can reemerge as raging infernos after the spring thaw.
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