The number of wildfires in Alberta, Canada’s top energy producer, is on the rise again, harming air quality across the region and threatening oil and gas production.
The province had 76 active wildfires, up from 71 on Friday, with 23 out of control, according to provincial data Monday. Smoke from the blazes, which are most active in the central and western parts of the province, drifted south to Calgary on Monday and Tuesday, worsening air quality to the “high risk” category, according to Environment Canada.
Some relief is expected in the coming days, with rain and cooler weather to help firefighters, Alberta Wildfire spokeswoman Melissa Story said at a news conference Monday. The amount of land burned has risen to a record 1.4 million hectares in the province, he said.
The epicenter of the fires is an important region for natural gas and light oil production, and infernos in the area earlier this year shut down significant amounts of production. On Saturday, TC Energy Corp. closed two compressor stations that were part of its NOVA gas transmission system and a gas storage facility near wildfires in the Edson area. Cooler weather and rain are expected
“If you look at western Canada, it’s completely covered in smoke,” Environment Canada meteorologist Gerald Cheng said at a media briefing. Edmonton, Alberta, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, also reported unhealthy air quality, and fog could remain in parts of both provinces until Wednesday, Cheng said.
Across Canada, 431 wildfires are currently burning, of which 208 are out of control, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told reporters. Nearly 30,000 people remain evacuated and 47,000 square kilometers (11.6 million acres) of land have been burned, he said.
“This unfortunately ranks as Canada’s worst wildfire season of the 21st century,” Blair said. The Canadian Armed Forces are assisting in the hardest-hit areas of Alberta, Quebec and Nova Scotia, and thousands of firefighters, including nearly 1,100 crews from other countries, have been deployed across Canada. Crews from Portugal and Spain will arrive soon, he said.
In Quebec, where fires sent thick smoke up the U.S. East Coast last week, the situation has improved, but there were still 113 active fires as of Monday afternoon. That’s down from about 150 at the end of last week.
Some rain is expected in southern Quebec over the next two days, but the amount likely won’t be significant and there’s a chance of lightning that could ignite fires, Environment Canada’s Cheng said. No rain is in the forecast for northwestern Ontario through the weekend. The larger wildfires are still producing a lot of smoke, he said.
Current wind currents around these provinces are channeling the pollution northward. But a low-pressure system is forming over the Great Lakes, and “is looking to act as a faucet to bring in more smoke,” said Bob Oravec, a senior forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center’s branch . The late spring has been marked by systems that have kept conditions cool and helped push smoke from the forests of Quebec into urban areas of Canada and the United States.
“As long as these fires are still burning, there’s going to be a chance for some kind of smoke to come south,” Oravec said.
Sean Fraser, the immigration minister who represents a district in Nova Scotia, said scenes on the ground of a large wildfire near Halifax have been “apocalyptic, frankly.” The fire destroyed around 200 buildings, including 150 homes, and many people remain displaced.
“Thanks to the extraordinary work of our firefighters, including a significant number of volunteer firefighters, no one has yet died in Nova Scotia as a result of the disaster,” Fraser said.
–With assistance from Robert Tuttle and Brian K. Sullivan.
