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Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Crews battling forest fire near Bayers Lake
Halifax residents are being asked to avoid the Bayers Lake Business Park as firefighters battle a wildfire in the area. Nova Scotia's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) confirmed it's responding to a wildfire near Susie Lake, which is located in Bayers Lake. A commercial building on Dugger McNeil Drive is being evacuated. Other businesses in the area have told CBC News they have been asked to evacuate as well. DNR said its helicopter and four aerial air tanker planes from New Brunswick are heading to Bayers Lake now. The size of the fire is not yet known. Halifax Regional Police told CBC News it's on scene supporting firefighters. They're are assisting with evacuations and asking people to stay away from the Bayers Lake area. Police said some streets have been closed, including Chain Lake Drive. "Lessening the traffic congestion will help crews respond to the fire and allow those evacuating to leave safely," police told CBC News in an email. Nova Scotia Health confirmed the Bayers Lake Community Outpatient Centre is being evacuated and that the facility's emergency response plans are being activated. Anyone with an appointment scheduled for the remainder of the day should not attend. Veronica MacIsaac was out for lunch at Jack Astor's in Bayers Lake when a friend spotted the smoke. "Behind the side of Bayers Lake where the Giant Tiger would be, there was just a huge big cloud of smoke and it very quickly was spreading through the restaurant," MacIsaac told CBC News. "And people were quickly paying their bills and trying to get out of there." MacIsaac said one of the staff at the restaurant drove out to see what was happening and noted some areas were being evacuated and roads were closing. "We got in an Uber and tried to get out of there, but traffic was already starting to get pretty congested," she said. Smoke from this fire could be seen across Halifax Tuesday afternoon. MORE TOP STORIES
CBC
44 minutes ago
- Climate
- CBC
Bay d'Espoir Highway closed due to Martin Lake wildfire
The Bay d'Espoir Highway in central Newfoundland closed Tuesday afternoon due to the out-of-control Martin Lake wildfire. In a social media post, the RCMP advised drivers that the highway is closed between the Sunday Lake Resource Road and the Cat Brook turnaround, two kilometres south of the North West Gander Bridge. Provincial fire duty officer Mark Lawlor told CBC News on Tuesday there was some growth on the fire's northeast and southwest corners on Monday due to weather conditions. According to the active wildfire dashboard, the Martin Lake fire is 290 hectares in size. "We had extremely high winds, high temperatures, and low relative humidity, which led to some growth," said Lawlor. While water bombers and helicopters were able to minimize the growth on Monday, the bulldozer and excavator working on the fire guard had to be pulled from the site because of safety concerns. Premier John Hogan told reporters on Tuesday afternoon that two water bombers from Quebec, as well as Air Tractors and a bird dog are currently working on the fire. The road closure comes as eight wildfires continue burn across Newfoundland and Labrador, and a new fire has ignited in Spaniard's Bay.
CBC
44 minutes ago
- General
- CBC
CBC News Network's Sarah Galashan speaks with wildfire evacuee, Eugene Howell
Get the latest on the CBC News App, and CBC News Network for breaking news and analysis.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
This is our second-worst wildfire season on record — and could be the new normal
This year's wildfire season is already the second-worst on record in Canada, and experts are warning that this might be the new normal. More than 7.3 million hectares have burned this year so far, more than double the 10-year average for this time of year, according to the latest figures from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) and Natural Resources Canada. "It's the size of New Brunswick, to put it into context," Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University, told CBC News. The last three fire seasons are among the 10 worst on record, according to a federal database dating back to 1972, with 2023's devastating blazes taking the top spot. "I've never seen three bad fire seasons in a row," Flannigan, who has been studying fires since the '70s, said. "I've seen two in a row: '94, '95. I've never seen three. This is scary." Manitoba and Saskatchewan account for more than half the area burned so far, but British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are all also well above their 25-year averages. Fire bans have been announced in multiple provinces, including a total ban on going in the woods in Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, the military and coast guard were called in to help fight fires in Newfoundland and Labrador this week. Around 1,400 international firefighters have also helped fight Canadian fires so far this year, according to the CIFFC. Scientists say that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, has created longer fire seasons and drier landscapes, sparking more intense and widespread forest fires. "I used to always say… some years are cooler and wetter and we will get quiet years," Flannigan said. "But maybe every year's going to be a bad fire year now." Dry conditions across the country have allowed fires to quickly balloon this fire season. "The forests of Canada are too dry, too hot," Environment Canada climatologist David Phillips told CBC News. "This year… there's no kind of reprieve from what we've seen." This year has seen notable blazes in regions where we haven't historically, such as Newfoundland and Labrador, where one fire has grown to over 5,200 hectares. Yan Boulanger, a research scientist in forest ecology at Natural Resources Canada, says Newfoundland "is not used to [seeing] huge fires." "But we will have to get more and more used to it, because those ecosystems are also projected to see an increase in fire activity in the upcoming decades." The other outlier is Quebec, which was one of the hardest-hit provinces in 2023, when an estimated 4.5 million hectares burned. This year, the province has had a much milder fire season, thanks to frequent precipitation in the spring and early summer, Boulanger says. But a sudden bout of dry conditions in August, usually a quiet fire month for the province, has experts recommending vigilance. Consequences of repeated fires Bad back-to-back fire seasons can have huge consequences. Fire is a natural part of the lifecycle for many tree species, but a forest can become damaged to the point where trees cannot regrow in the area for years, or even decades. It's called "regeneration failure." "The problem is when we have too much fire and we are getting out of what we are calling the natural variability of the system," Boulanger said. "When such things happen… the forest can lose its resilience." Scientists are already seeing it in regions of Quebec that were heavily damaged in 2023, and in parts of the Northwest Territories and Alberta, Boulanger says. Right now, around 300,000 to 400,000 hectares are affected by regeneration failure in Quebec. Fewer trees means less carbon being stored, exacerbating the problem of increased emissions that occur during widespread forest fires. The 2023 fires produced nearly a quarter of the year's global wildfire carbon emissions. Meanwhile, wildfire smoke has been linked to a myriad of health complications, including a higher risk of dementia. WATCH | Calls picking up for a national wildfire agency: With intense wildfires becoming an annual problem in Canada on a new scale, we need more strategies, experts say. The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) has called on Ottawa to establish a national forest fire co-ordination agency to ensure that personnel and equipment can be distributed across the country when different regions are seeing heavy fires, and that fire chiefs are at the table when national policies are made. The government has been studying the possibility of creating a national disaster response agency since 2023, and met with CAFC to discuss it in December. But it's time to move beyond the planning stage, according to Ken McMullen, the organization's president and fire chief in Red Deer, Alta. "All parties are saying that they think it's a good idea. The reality is nobody's helped pick up the ball and get it across the finish line," he said. Flannigan, at Thompson Rivers University, supports the idea, but believes we need to go further and create a robust national emergency management agency that would be able to provide training for fighting wildfires, forecast where fires are likely to occur and whether they're a danger, and then move resources there proactively. "Yes, it's going to cost money, but if it prevents one Jasper, one Fort McMurray, it pays for itself," he said, referring to the Alberta communities ravaged in recent years by fires. "The status quo doesn't seem to be working. We're spending billions and billions of dollars on fire management expenditures, but our area burned has quadrupled since the 1970s."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- General
- Yahoo
Windsor to spend as much as $7.5M on Water World emergency overnight shelter
City documents obtained by CBC News show the cost to renovate the temporary Homelessness and Housing Help Hub (H4) into a 75-bed emergency shelter could reach $7.5 million. Windsor city council approved plans to renovate the temporary H4 space during a closed-door meeting last month. The decision comes amid a drastic rise in the number of people who are homeless in Windsor — putting emergency shelters in a continued capacity crunch. The former Windsor Water World building, located at Wyandotte Street and Glengarry Avenue, was converted into an emergency day use facility in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The temporary facility is expected to be replaced by a permanent location somewhere in the city. But that effort has stalled after council decided last year to not move forward with the purchase of a west-end site it selected in 2024. Site will remain open during renovations The H4 site offers basic medical care, food, washrooms and clothing to people who do not have a home. A feasibility study completed for the City of Windsor obtained by CBC News details the potential for 75 semi-private spaces inside of the former Water World building. Those shelter spaces will placed on top of the filled in pool area, according to a suggested layout included in the document. There will also be renovated bathrooms, individual lockers and outdoor fencing added to the property. The company that does the renovations will need to do the work while keeping the H4 site active. A report to council earlier this year shows there are 672 people homeless in Windsor, with 165 shelter spaces available on a typical night. WATCH | Recent count of Windsor's homelessness issue: The number of beds increases when shelters create overflow space during emergency situations like extreme cold in the winter. People used H4 as an overnight shelter for the first time this winter when the centre created 35 temporary overnight warming spaces in January, paid for by the provincial government. New site can go anywhere in Windsor The city wants the renovation project completed by the spring of 2026 and expects it will operate for an additional five years while it searches for a permanent location. That search has shifted from the original criteria council used when it selected the previous site near Wellington Avenue and Wyandotte. A 2022 consultant's report the city paid for said the new site should be within 2 kilometres of resources in the core and have access to public transit. Now it will open the site selection process across the city. The decision to renovate H4 was made by council during a meeting that the public and reports could not attend. Provincial legislation requires meetings to be held in public except for limited exemptions. This discussion was held in private based on two exemptions, according to the city clerk: A proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board; and A position, plan, procedure, criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiation carried on by or on behalf of the municipality. CBC News asked to speak with Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens about the renovations, the costs, and making the decision in an in-camera session. His chief of staff declined the request.
