13.4 Ha Hangus, Canada Records Worst Forest Fire Season

Illustration of Forest Fires (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Canada recorded that there were 5,500 fires that scorched a forest area of 13.4 hectares to date. This has led high-ranking officials to warn that this large enough fire is still happening.

Fires have devoured every province and territory from coast to beach, from British Columbia in the west to Northwest Territories and Newfoundland in the eastern part, officials said. The area hit by fires to date is more than Greek in size.

"This hot season has turned into a challenging struggle," said Director General of the Northern Section of the Canadian Forestry Center, Michael Norton, quoting Antara.

"Unfortunately, the fire season is not over yet and it is likely that we will experience very significant fire activity over the next few weeks."

To illustrate the extent of the forest fires this season, an average of 10 years devoured 2.2 million hectares of land and the previous record was 1989 when 7.6 million hectares of land caught fire.

There have been 211 evacuation orders to date and more than 167 thousand people have been forced to leave their homes, officials said.

"There has been very little pause since May. This season (the fire) is ongoing. This is the largest number of burned areas in our records," Norton said.