Manitoba Wildfires Force Thousands of Evacuations Amid Spreading Wildfires

The Canadian province of Manitoba witnessed evacuations by more than 17,000 people on May 8 as the region experienced a series of wildfires, reported AFP.

“The Manitoba government has declared a province-wide state of emergency due to the wildfire situation,” Manitoba’s premier, Wab Kinew, told a news conference. “This is the largest evacuation Manitoba will have seen in most people’s living memory,” Kinew added.

Kinew also shared that he had asked the prime minister, Mark Carney, to send in the Canadian military to help with the evacuations and firefighting.

Military aircraft would be deployed “imminently” to help move people out of endangered remote northern communities to safety, along with additional firefighting resources.

The climate crisis has made wildfires in Canada more frequent and intense. The country has been hit with devastating fires in recent years, including in 2023, the most destructive on record.

There are now 134 active fires across Canada, including in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Half are considered out of control.

The escalating wildfire activity in Manitoba is part of a larger global trend.

The evacuations include the town of Flin Flon, where 5,000 residents were told earlier to get ready to flee on a moment’s notice as a major wildfire bore down on the mining town, which is named after a fictional character in a 1905 paperback novel.

Wildfires Turning Forests into Super Carbon Emitters

Forests and peatlands, historically considered as one of the most effective terrestrial carbon sinks, have increasingly transitioned in to massive carbon emitters in many parts of the world due to increasing wildfires, revealed a new report published by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

Carbon mitigation actions and policies such as the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM), Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation, Improved Forest Management and the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) assume that forests would continue to function as stable carbon sinks.

Citing instances of the past decade where fires have become net carbon sources and heat reservoirs triggering worsening wildfires, the report added, “In 2023, Canadian wildfires covering 18.5 million hectares emitted approximately 23 per cent of the global carbon from wildfires, nearly six times Canada’s 20 years’ average.”