Canadian firefighter killed battling blaze in British Columbia

A firefighter in western Canada has died battling one of the devastating wildfires that have ravaged the country for weeks, her union announced yesterday.
The incident on Thursday was the first death on the ground since the start of the fire season, in which more than 900 fires are burning including 570 out of control.
The British Columbia General Employees Union (BCGEU) said the woman died outside the town of Revelstoke in British Columbia, around 310 miles (500km) northeast of Vancouver.
Revelstoke Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that the woman, 19, had been clearing brush in a remote area where a small fire had started.
She lost contact with her team and was discovered caught under a fallen tree.
The woman was airlifted to hospital but succumbed to her injuries, the police statement said.
There are currently three wildfires burning within 30 miles of Revelstoke, and two are considered out of control, according to BC Wildfire Service.
“It is with heavy hearts that our union mourns the loss of one of our BCGEU family,” it said.
The province’s fire agency said “the individual was injured while responding to a wildfire” without elaborating.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the news “heartbreaking” and thanked Canadian firefighters for their courage.
“The news from British Columbia – that one of the firefighters bravely battling wildfires has lost her life – is heartbreaking. At this incredibly difficult time, I’m sending my deepest condolences to her family, her friends, and her fellow firefighters,” Trudeau said on Twitter.
British Columbia recently ordered new evacuations due to the blazes and requested the help of 1,000 more international firefighters.
“It is very, very challenging across Canada and across the globe right now to secure additional firefighting capacity,” BC Fire Department spokesman Cliff Chapman said on Thursday.
“This is a very dangerous job,” he went on. “With the conditions we are in, it makes it all that much more dangerous for our staff who are working 14, 16, 20-hour days.”
Sarah Budd with the British Columbia Wildfire Service said the weather will remain hot and dry for the foreseeable future.
“We’re not expecting any reprieve from the weather,” she said.
With 9mn hectares (22.2mn acres) already gone up in smoke – 11 times the average for the last decade – the annual record set in 1989 has been surpassed.
Both sides of the country are burning at the same time, which is unusual for Canada.
Some provinces unaccustomed to fires have also been affected, including northern Quebec, where more than a million hectares have burned.
Canada, which is warming faster than the rest of the planet because of its geography, has been confronted with extreme weather events whose intensity and frequency have increased due to climate change.
In Quebec, the Canadian military is being deployed to help with emergency evacuations in the north of the province, federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said yesterday.
Smoke from the fires has fouled the air in Canada and neighbouring United States, affecting more than 100mn people, at times disrupting flights and forcing the cancellation of numerous outdoor events.
Lack of rain in recent months has left much British Columbia parched, in what officials say is an “unprecedented” level of drought for this early in the year.
Hot weather is forecast to persist across much of the province and thunderstorms are likely to bring more lightning strikes that will spark more fires, Cliff Chapman, director of provincial operations for BC Wildfire, said in a media briefing on Thursday.
“We have seen more fire on the landscape in terms of number of starts than in previous years at this point in time,” he said, adding there have been 51,000 lightning strikes in the last week alone.