Franceinfo compared the number of hectares of forest destroyed in the Alberta region with the number of major French cities. The result is uplifting.
In Canada, 445,781 hectares – or 4,457.81 km2 – of forest and scrubland have gone up in smoke in the Alberta region. According to the dashboard updated in real time by the provincial government, 74 fires are still active as of Friday May 12, 22 of which are still considered “out of control”.
In total, almost 29,000 residents were saved from the flames, but some of them lost everything: shops, houses, souvenirs… The losses were greatest in the north of the province. “More than 150 houses were destroyed or demolished, as well as a number of other infrastructures such as a center for the elderly,” said a minister, referring to more than 4,000 evacuees.
The firefighters are on duty to extinguish this gigantic blast furnace. Several Canadian provinces, but also neighboring US states (such as Oregon and Alaska) have sent reinforcements to support the firefighters to “prevent exhaustion,” said a spokeswoman for the aid organization. The army is also deployed: around 200 soldiers arrived on Thursday, and according to Canadian authorities, 100 more are expected to arrive shortly.
Satellite imagery of wildfires in the province of Alberta, Canada, acquired by Sentinel-3 on May 6, 2023. (Sentinel Hub)
Also from the sky we can see that the losses are immense. The Sentinel-3 satellite captured images of the fire. Large plumes of smoke are seen coming from several forest fires. And time is of the essence because, despite a drop in temperature over the past two days, the fires could regain strength by the end of the week with the return of heat in the center and north of the country, according to meteorological website Environment Canada.
To understand the scale of the phenomenon, Franceinfo compared these Canadian wildfires to four other French cities: Marseille, Toulouse, Paris and Lyon.
More than 42 times the area of Paris
The area burned by the fires currently raging in Canada accounts for 36.88% of the Ile-de-France region. This corresponds to a circle with a diameter of 75.1 km completely destroyed by the flames. That is 42.19 times the area of Paris intramural.
Almost 18 times as much as Marseille
If we go further south of the country, towards Marseille, France’s ninth largest city by area at 240 km2, the comparison is just as startling. Canadian wildfires cover 14.10% of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region and 18.46 times the area of Marseille. The fire would completely burn down the cities of Aix-en-Provence, Toulon or even La-Seyne-sur-Mer.
Almost 93 times the size of the city of Lyon
On the Lyon side, a 47.87 km2 metropolitan area in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Canadian fires cover 6.38% of the 69,711 km2 region and would burn down 92.89 Lyon-sized towns in their paths.
About 38 times that of Toulouse
The Alberta fires would also devastate 37.59 cities such as Toulouse, covering an area of 118.3 km2. Returned to Occitania, they would represent 6.11% of the region, the second largest in France.
