By Nia Williams
(Reuters) – A week of record hot weather in western Canada has forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, as wildfires rage in parts of Alberta and rapid snow melt triggers flooding across interior British Columbia.
By Friday more than 3,700 people were under an evacuation order in Alberta. Among the worst-hit areas was the Little Red River Cree Nation in the north of the province, where the 1,458-hectare Fox Lake fire consumed 20 homes and the police station.
In British Columbia, rivers burst their banks, washing through homes and forcing highway closures in numerous communities across the southern interior, including Cache Creek and Grand Forks.
Until last week western Canada had been enduring a cold spring but the rapid onset of unseasonably high temperatures, in places 10C above the average for early May, is triggering both fires and flooding.
In British Columbia, the flooding is expected to worsen over the weekend with heavy rain forecast across the south of the province.
“Peak river levels are expected on Saturday through Monday,” British Columbia’s River Forecast Centre said in a flood warning issued late Thursday.
(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Mark Porter)
