Iran Press/ America: Friday’s national snapshot from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre showed a growing number of out-of-control fires on the West Coast, as hot, dry weather fed flames and led to a fresh round of evacuation orders and alerts. Quebec still had the most active fires, at 139. Only a fraction of them are being suppressed by the province’s overstretched firefighting authorities.
"There are 416 wildfires burning across Canada, and 213 of those are currently determined to be out of control," Bill Blair said while providing an update on the wildfire situation.
The minister further noted that although the weather has been helping firefighting efforts in some regions, it remains a challenge and there is concern that new wildfires are “high and extreme” in some instances.
Blair acknowledged the presence of 1,500 firefighters from the United States, and 300 more from Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, France, Portugal, Spain, and South Africa, thanking them for supporting ongoing efforts to tame the wildfires nationwide.
During the last update on the wildfire situation in Canada on June 15, the Minister for Environment and Climate Change noted that the current rate at which forest lands are burnt exceeds by far the decade average of 2.7 million hectares per season.
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