YELLOWKNIFE , Northwest Territories, July 14 (UPI) -- Forest fires in rain-deprived western Canada, described by a witness as "tornadoes of fire," are caused by climate change, a University of Alberta analyst said.
Canada's Northwest Territories, at the same longitude as Alaska, has been the site of forest fires this summer caused by dry conditions meteorological models predict for 40 years from now, said Dave Phillips, senior climatologist of Environment Canada.
A fire 13 kilometers (eight miles) long, near Yellowknife, N.W.T., over the weekend forced the evacuation of a fishing lodge. Spencer Decorby witnessed a fire last week 80 kilometers (49 miles) east of Yellowknife, which he described as "a wall of flame a couple of stories high. There were literally tornadoes of fire in the treetops and when they were crowning, they'd literally explode in front of us."
"What we are seeing in the Northwest Territories this year is an indicator of what to expect with climate change. Expect more fires, larger fires, more intense fires. Some attribute that to climate change and I'm one of those," said University of Alberta wildland fire professor Mike Flannigan. He added about 2 million hectares (7,722 square miles) of forest area burn every year in Canada, about twice as much as in the 1970s.
"Expect more fires, larger fires, more intense fires. It's just almost as if there's no weather around. We've seen, for example, in the last six weeks, precipitation in Yellowknife is only about 20 per cent of what it should be," Phillips said. "You're just not seeing any rain."
