2023-07-15 00:37:27
A 19-year-old firefighter has died fighting a wildfire in Canada. The young woman was “clamped under a fallen tree” while creating a swath in the forest, Canadian police said on Friday. She was rescued by colleagues and flown to a hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries. The young woman is the first victim of the forest fires that have been going on for weeks.
According to the responsible union, the 19-year-old died near the city of Revelstoke in the western province of British Columbia. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his dismay and thanked the firefighters for their courage. “We must never forget the risks these heroes take every time they walk into danger,” Trudeau wrote on Twitter.
According to official information, more than 900 fires blazed in Canada on Friday. About 560 of them were therefore out of control. 9.7 million hectares have already gone up in smoke – eleven times the average of the past decade. The absolute annual record from 1989 has already been exceeded by far.
British Columbia had recently ordered new evacuations because of the fires and requested the support of 1,000 other firefighters from abroad. The north of Québec in the east of the country is also affected. So far there is no prospect of improvement: the weather will remain hot and dry for the foreseeable future, said Sarah Budd of the British Columbia Fire Department.
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