Thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes in Alberta, western Canada due to devastating forest fires. Authorities have asked 13,000 people in parts of Alberta to evacuate as at least 78 fires rage across the province.
By late Thursday, the entire population of the small town of Drayton Valley, about 7,000 people, had been evacuated. At the same time, 20 houses have burned in the Fox Lake area. It had been a week of unusually high temperatures, which also caused flooding as the snow melted at high speed.
Since the beginning of the year, Alberta has 348 wildfires that have burned about 250,000 acres to date. The burned area is the largest that has been observed in recent years for the first months of the year. Meanwhile, the authorities expect the temperature to rise further, but also to blow strong winds, which are expected to intensify the fires.
Until last week Canada was having a generally cold spring. In recent days, temperatures have soared in some places as much as 10 or 15 degrees Celsius above normal for the season.
