Wildfires that have already forced thousands in Canada’s Nova Scotia province to evacuate were threatening communities on the outskirts of Halifax on Wednesday and causing poor air quality hundreds of miles away as smoke drifted across the U.S. border.
Dozens of firefighters and several water bombers battled two out-of-control blazes – dubbed the Tantallon Fire and the Bedford Fire – northwest of downtown Halifax, the provincial capital. More than 18,000 people have fled their homes, most of them in the heavily forested fringes of the city, but there have been no reported fatalities.
Arid conditions and winds gusts of 25 kilometers an hour hampered firefighting efforts on Wednesday, making it ‘very dangerous for the folks in the field,’ David Steeves, an official with the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, said at an afternoon news conference.
The two blazes were among the 14 wildfires burning in Nova Scotia, causing hazy skies and a general sense of anxiety across the Atlantic province, fire officials said.
‘It’s really been heartbreaking. There’s definitely a lot of helplessness out there across the province right now,’ Premier Tim Houston said, urging residents to help others in need.
The wildfires were causing poor air quality hundreds of miles to the south in parts of the U.S. East Coast and Midwest as smoke drifts across the regions.
Air quality alerts were in effect for southern Michigan and Wisconsin, northern Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York where a high concentration of pollutants were in the forecast, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
Source: Somali National News Agency