Fires raged across western Canada from this month, devouring large swaths of forest and forcing 30,000 people from their homes in the province of Alberta.
Results from the fires, including smoke and the like, are expected to continue into next week.
Satellite images taken by the European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) showed smoke from the fires moving across North America.
Forests in western Spain have also seen fires, amid winds of up to 60 km/h. The fires are estimated to have devoured 80 kilometers of forest.
Why did the fires reach this country?
Environmental expert and member of the International Union for Conservation of the Environment, Ayman Qaddouri, listed for “Sky News Arabia” the reasons for the spread of fires in this country recently:
• The spread of forest fires in Europe and North America has become a phenomenon in light of the successive droughts that have hit southern Europe and northern North America, more specifically in Canada.
• The onset and continuation of a sudden dry spell, albeit intermittently, and for short periods of time, causing plants to lose water content and exposing grasses and trees to drying out and the death of some of their parts such as the leaves; Thus, the organic fuel is ready to ignite.
• As for the source of the first spark, it has human and natural causes, such as the spark of lightning, the friction of trees between them, the spark emanating from rolling rocks, the eruption of volcanoes and the rays of the sun.
• The proportion of natural fires is estimated between 10 and 15% compared to human-caused fires, which amount to 85-90%. However, 80% of fires in southern Europe are attributed to natural causes due to climate change, as well as Canada, which has suffered from intermittent droughts since 2021.
• Dangerous forest fires are spreading in all parts of the world, and the heat and drought create a fertile environment for the growth and spread of these fires.
• For all of the above, the area of ​​the fires has expanded to witness the entry of new areas that had not experienced this phenomenon before, including northern North America, specifically Canada.
• The European climate is experiencing a temperature increase of 20% compared to the rest of the climatic regions of the planet, and therefore the southern parts of it, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and parts of Britain, are at risk over the next few years. dry summer days.
Increase in losses
Environmental expert warns wildfires cause catastrophic losses:
• Loss of 5 times the area burned, as plants in areas adjacent to burning forests are affected, which is the first line of defense against climate change and the preservation of oxygen levels in the atmosphere.
• Soil erosion and the impact on its characteristics and productivity, even the extinction of rare species of plants and animals.
• The depletion of the ozone layer, as well as the increase in the concentrations of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide and nitrogen, in the atmosphere; This exacerbates the global warming crisis and accelerates the transmission of its effects to other climatic regions.
Prevention and confrontation
Kadouri puts forward several points to deal with the risk of the spread of forest fires, stressing that limiting the spread of fires is a public responsibility, which requires raising everyone’s awareness to reduce the causes:
On the required government procedures:
• In places where forests are falling, authorities should start monitoring the forests, especially on dry summer days.
• Ask people in the forest and nearby areas to lift solid objects and move fuel sources away from dry places and objects.
• Provide civil protection teams with fire-fighting equipment, planes equipped with extinguishing equipment and drilling equipment used to remove parts of the forest to limit the spread of fire.
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