With wildfires raging across western Canada, Manitoba has declared a province-wide state of emergency and ordered the biggest evacuation in decades. "I can tell you everybody has to be out by midnight, and that includes me," the mayor of Flin Flon, population 5,000, told the CBC on Wednesday. There are at least 22 active wildfires in the province and more than 17,000 people are under evacuation orders. Forecasters say winds will push wildfire smoke into Midwestern states on Thursday and Friday, with cities including Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit expected to see a significant decline in air quality on Friday, the Washington Post reports.
"This is the largest evacuation that Manitoba will have seen in most people's living memory," Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Wednesday, per the New York Times. He added that the military "is being called for help here because of the sheer scale." Kinew said the armed forces were helping city officials in Manitoba build temporary shelters for evacuees in Winnipeg, the province's capital. "For the first time, it's not a fire in one region—we have fires in every region," Kinew said, per the Guardian. "That is a sign of a changing climate that we are going to have to adapt to."
Wildfires are also burning in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, with half of the country's 161 active fires considered "out of control." Canada's worst wildfire season on record was in 2023, which brought record-breaking air pollution to some US cities, the Post reports. (More Canada stories.)
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