Wildfires in Canada
Background to the news:
- Hundreds of uncontrolled forest fires blazed across Canada causing the air quality of New York city to deteriorate.
- Wildfires are common in Canada’s western provinces, but this year flames have mushroomed rapidly in the country’s east, making it the worst-ever start to the season.
- The air quality index, a US Environmental Protection Agency metric for air pollution, exceeded a staggering 400 at times in Syracuse, New York City and Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.
- A level of 50 or under is considered good; anything over 300 is considered “hazardous,” when even healthy people are advised to curtail outdoor physical activity.
What are Wildfires?
- A wildfireis an uncontrolled fire that burns in the wildland vegetation.
- Wildfires can burn in forests, grasslands, savannas, and other ecosystems.
- They are not limited to a particular continent or environment.
- Wildfires can burn in vegetation located both in and above the soil.
- Ground firestypically ignite in soil thick with organic matter that can feed the flames, like plant roots.
- Ground fires can go on for a long time even an entire season until conditions are right for them to grow to a surface or crown fire.
- Surface fires, on the other hand, burn in dead or dry vegetation that is lying or growing just above the ground.
- Parched grass or fallen leaves often fuel surface fires. Wildfires can start with a natural occurrence such as a lightning strike or a human-made spark.
- However, it is often the weather conditions that determine how much a wildfire grows.
- Wind, high temperatures, and little rainfall can all leave trees, shrubs, fallen leaves, and limbs dried out and primed to fuel a fire.
What is causing wildfires in and around Canada?
- Atlantic Canada received low snowfall this winter, followed by an exceptionally dry spring.
- The strong winds high up in the atmosphere has transported smoke long distances and it’s common for large, violent fires to create unhealthy conditions hundreds of miles away from where forests are burning.
- In Canada, air is circulating counterclockwise around a low pressure system near Nova Scotia.
Syllabus: Prelims + Mains; GS III – Environment
