Fact Check: Claims that Canada was not affected by wildfires is FALSE
By Satya Priya BN Published on 16 Sep 2020 9:34 AM GMT
Hyderabad: Forest fires that ravaged several states in western USA and the death toll from these wildfires has risen to 33 as the National Weather Service has issued a "red flag warning" amid high winds and dry conditions in Oregon and some California counties.
Several users have shared a map showing US-Canada border showing more fires in the USA and no fires in Canada with a claim that the fires lack Canadian passports so they are unable to cross borders, depicts the movement of fires near the border.
The map shows red markers depicting where fires are burning in the states. There are no such markings north or south of the U.S. border.
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Fact Check
The claim is FALSE.
Though the situation in Canada is not as worse as in the USA, the wildfires have crossed the borders and Canada is also affected due to these fires.
We can find a report by the natural resources department in Canada that keeps updated information about the wildfires in its country. As per the National Wildland Fire Situation Report, as of September 9, 2020, Canada has had 3,621 fires and a total of about 2,35,124 hectares got burnt. Overall, these values are lower than the national 5, 10 and 15-year averages. Canada's 10-year average is 5,639 fires and 28,64,437 ha got burnt.
The government said 2020 has been a quiet fire year on a national-level with many jurisdictions proactively enacting fire bans and wide-scale restrictions early in the spring due to Covid-19 measures. The national preparedness level did not reach level 4 or 5 this year, unlike in 2017 and 2018, where a large portion of the summer was spent at preparedness level 5.
We can find an interactive map about the fire danger in Canada published by its Natural Resources Department.
Currrently, there are 25 wildfires burning in British Columbia.
According to NASA satellite images, wildfires have hardly been contained within the U.S. as fires have breached the northern border, where they continue to burn, and fires burned across the southern border earlier this year which appear to continue.
Hence, the claim that forest fires burning across the western USA have not crossed borders and Canada is not affected is FALSE.
