Canada prepares to evacuate Ontario community as wildfire smoke chokes US

The Canadian military was preparing on July 18 to evacuate a remote community of 600 people threatened by forest wildfires that have spread choking smoke across a broad swathe of the United States.

Federal Emergencies Minister Eleanor Olszewski said late on July 17 that the armed forces would use aircraft to evacuate the inhabitants of Fort Hope in sparsely populated north-western Ontario, where some of the most intense fires are burning.

The region has few roads and relies heavily on air travel. Thousands of people have already been evacuated from affected areas to cities farther south in Ontario.

Major forest fires have become a regular annual occurrence in Canada, home to some of the world’s largest forest landscapes. Climate experts say rising temperatures have led to drier timber and increased fire risk.

The federal natural resources ministry on July 18 said 69 new fires had been reported overnight in Canada, bringing the number to 955.

The total area burned so far is almost 28,500 sq km, well below the five-year average. But winds have carried the smoke south of the border, prompting the authorities to issue air quality alerts and health warnings in parts of the US.

As at 8am ET, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow site rated the air quality as “unhealthy” in an area including southern Ontario, eastern areas of Ohio and West Virginia, most of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, much of Virginia and all of Maryland, Delaware and Washington.

Parts of western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, were rated “very unhealthy”. AirNow predicted that the air quality in those areas would improve over the course of the day.

Smoke from the Canadian fires will have only a minimal impact on July 19’s football World Cup final at New York New Jersey Stadium, forecaster AccuWeather said on July 17.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires clouding the US Capitol in Washington on July 17. PHOTO: REUTERS

US President Donald Trump on July 17 blamed what he called incompetent Canadian forest management for the smoke and said he would add the “incalculable cost” of dealing with the pollution to existing tariffs on Canadian goods.

After Trump’s comments, Olszewski said Canada has invested C$12 billion (S$11 billion) in forest sustainability and fire prevention since 2020 as the country confronts increasingly drier, warmer weather conditions. REUTERS