This year’s wildfire season has long set records for its magnitude. The previous record was in 1989, when 73,000 square meters of land were burned for an entire year, according to national figures from the CIFFC center.

The area that has been burned so far this year is almost as big as Iceland – or the combined area of ​​the Norwegian counties of Troms, Finnmark and Viken.

A total of 4,088 forest and brush fires have been recorded so far this year. More than 150,000 people were evacuated and on Thursday, a 19-year-old firefighter lost his life.

– Absolutely crazy

Due to the scale of the fires, authorities felt obliged to let most of them burn. Most fires took place in forests far from populated areas. But they nonetheless have serious consequences on the environment.

– This year, we are seeing numbers worse than our most pessimistic scenarios, says Yan Boulange of the Department of Natural Resources Canada.

– What is completely crazy is that there has been no respite since May, he continues.

570 fires out of control

As of Saturday, there were 906 active fires in Canada. 570 of them are out of control and the fire is burning in all provinces of the country.

– We are talking about huge areas, says Colonel Philippe Sansa, who heads a French fire department fighting the flames in Quebec, in northern Canada.

– The fire we are working on is 65 kilometers long, which represents enormous organizational challenges, he continues.

Western and Eastern Canada are hard hit. At the start of the wildfire season in May, western Alberta was hardest hit by fires of unprecedented scale.

A few weeks later, the fires were worst in Nova Scotia on the east coast, before huge fires in Quebec created thick clouds of smoke that even affected parts of the United States.

Severe drought

Since the beginning of July, the situation has taken a dramatic turn in British Columbia. More than 250 fires broke out here in just three days last week. Most of them were triggered by lightning.

Large areas of Canada are in severe drought after months of abnormally low precipitation and high temperatures.

The country is warming faster than the rest of the Earth due to its geographic location. Extreme weather events in Canada have increased in intensity and frequency due to climate change, scientists say.

The large green ring of forest in the north of the planet is crucial to the health of the planet. Due to the density of the undergrowth, forest fires in the north can release significantly more CO2 per square kilometer than some other ecosystems. This may further contribute to global warming.