Wildfires around the world in 2023 killed and injured hundreds of people, and caused large-scale destruction, forest loss and carbon emissions.
Wildfires have caused serious destruction, hundreds of deaths and the evacuation of thousands of people around the world this year, especially in Canada, the United States of America (USA) and Greece.
According to the European Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), the wildfires in Canada, which started in May and lasted for months, led to approximately 480 megatons of carbon emissions.
– Huge areas under fire –
CAMS recorded a significant increase in emissions caused by fires in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The fires in Canada were recorded as the largest in the history of that country and among the largest in the world in the last ten years.
According to the country’s Interagency Wildfire Center (CIFFC), the amount of land affected by wildfires in the country this year reached the highest level in its history, surpassing the approximately 7.6 million hectares of land destroyed by wildfires in 1989.
While the size of forest area affected by wildfires in Canada this year is about 18.5 million hectares, it is important to note that this is larger than the area of South Korea and Cuba.
The Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta were the most affected by this year’s fires.
Officials reported battling 2,217 fires in British Columbia, burning about 25,000 square kilometers of forest, brush and grassland.
– The smoke reached the USA and Europe –
Smoke from Canadian wildfires has reached the northeastern states of the United States and the western coast of Europe. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has shared images that indicate the arrival of smoke from a wildfire in Alberta on the US-Canada border.
CAMS also stated that the smoke clouds reached Europe from the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean.
Wildfires that broke out in a wooded area of the island of Maui in Hawaii in early August killed 100 people, the deadliest wildfires in the US in the last 100 years.
Gov. Josh Green said earlier that about 2,200 structures were destroyed, causing about $6 billion in damage.
President Joe Biden also declared the island a disaster zone.
– Fires in Greece, the biggest in the last 20 years –
The fire, which started on August 19, claimed 21 lives and became the largest forest fire in Greece in the last two decades.
According to the Greek Meteorological Department, the forested area burned exceeded 720,000 hectares in the two regions. Among the 16 largest fires in the last 20 years, the fire affected the widest area and was recorded as the largest fire recorded in European territories in recent years.
In the forest fires that swept through central and southern Chile in February, 24 people died and more than 400,000 hectares, along with hundreds of houses, were reduced to ashes.
In the fires that broke out in the south of Italy at the end of July, four people died, and thousands were evacuated to safe areas.
In Tenerife, part of Spain’s southwestern Canary Islands, five villages were evacuated in August due to wildfires, with 12,000 residents displaced and more than 8,000 hectares burned.
Another fire in Tenerife in October led to the evacuation of more than 3,000 residents from an area covering 15 hectares, AA writes.
