Overview
- The Pear Lake wildfire north of Clinton covered more than 732 square kilometres by Thursday and has produced four evacuation alerts and six evacuation orders that include the entire Village of Clinton.
- B.C. crews had to extract a resident who refused to leave an evacuation-order area, and incident commander Bryce Moreira urged people to obey orders to protect themselves and first responders.
- Fire officials warned that the coming hot, dry and windy weather and ongoing drought raise the risk of heightened fire behaviour and new wildfire starts in the Cariboo region.
- Ontario’s Natural Resources Minister Mike Harris Jr. said the season is “getting back to normal” after crews extinguished 80 fires in two weeks, but 159 wildfires still burn and the Thunder Bay 36 blaze remains out of control at more than 3,000 square kilometres with minimal recent growth.
- Dozens of communities have been evacuated in Ontario this season—14 in total, 12 of them First Nations—with about 2,000 people displaced, calls for an independent public inquiry growing, and international tensions over assistance after Mexico sent roughly 100 firefighters while the U.S. did not provide suppression aid.