Wildfires, Heatwaves Hit Northern Hemisphere
Date: 05-Aug-03
Country: CANADA
Author: Allan Dowd
No deaths have been reported in Canada, but nine people have died in the last week in the worst fires in Portugal in a generation. The heatwave has killed 12 people in Spain and Germany.
Canadian officials feared strong winds would create "extreme fire activity" in three large blazes burning near Kamloops in the west coast province of British Columbia, which is about the size of France and Germany combined.
The entire province is under a state of emergency as dry conditions created what officials said was the most dangerous wildfire season in a half century.
Winds also hampered the fight against a blaze in the Crowsnest Pass region of southwestern Alberta's Rocky Mountains. But some of an estimated 8,500 people evacuated in western Canada have been allowed to return home.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said the declaration of a national disaster, approved by the cabinet yesterday, would make more than $113 million available in disaster aid.
Smoke from fires in the central mountain areas shrouded much of Portugal, about the size of the U.S. state of Indiana.
The heatwave was due to a mass of hot, dry air from the southeast, said Mario Almeida of Portugal's weather service. He added it was too early to say if the unusual temperatures were due to climate change.
HEAT KILLS 12 IN SPAIN, GERMANY
Fires in Spain's Extramadura region bordering Portugal, and Avila province forced hundreds of people to leave their homes.
Seven mostly elderly people had died from the heat since Thursday in the southern region of Andalucia.
Temperatures in the upper 90s F caused five deaths in the north German town of Holzminden over the weekend.
Firefighters battling a forest blaze 37 miles south of Berlin were hampered by exploding munitions in an area used by Soviet forces for training during the Cold War.
In France, a spokeswoman for the state weather office said temperatures this week were expected to near the national record of 111.2 F set in 1923. In Britain, temperatures threatened to top the 98.8 F all-time high.
Britain's national rail network said it was restricting train speeds on a wide range of lines in case rails buckled with the heat.
Some 431 fires raged in Russia. Heavy rain has tamed blazes that devastated swathes of Siberia and the Russian Far East.
Firefighters in Croatia battled fires on the Adriatic islands of Brac, Hvar and Bisevo. Blazes have burned an estimated 12,500 to 15,000 acres of pine forests, olive groves and scrubland in southern Croatia since last week. (Reporting from offices in Canada and Europe)
