CAN: Canada calls on Australian help as forest fires rage
Wed Aug 5 04:38:43 EST 2009
VANCOUVER, Canada, Aug 4 AFP - Canada has sought Australian help in bringing under control forest fires sweeping through parts of British Columbia and threatening a historic gold rush town.
Hardest hit were Central Okanagan, a wine-growing and tourism region 400km east of the main western city of Vancouver, and communities further northwest near the gold rush town of Lillooet.
Residents of Lillooet formed the majority of some 5,000 people forced to flee the blazes that were closing in on towns and aboriginal communities in Canada's westernmost province.
Regional fire spokeswoman Alyson Couch said the province had on Tuesday asked for help from firefighters from other countries. An Australian agency was in British Columbia "working on negotiations on bringing in some crews", she told AFP.
Couch said American crews who would normally be called upon for help were unable to because they had their own raging fires to deal with in the west of the United States.
"Their fire situation is escalating at this time and they don't have any resources for us."
Emergency officials said that while showers had been forecast for later in the week it would take some major rainfall to substantially reduce the current danger.
"For the fire-danger rating to go down we need more than a few scattered showers," fire official Isabelle Jacques told AFP on the phone from Lillooet, some 200km northeast of Vancouver. "We need a significant amount of precipitation."
The fires erupted after record-breaking temperatures last week of up to 40 degrees Celsius rendered much of British Columbia's forest woods tinder-dry.
Officials say new blazes are starting daily, caused mostly by lightning strikes, but with some caused by people.
There have been no deaths or injuries so far because of the blazes and only three homes have been destroyed so far.
