MONTREAL: As Canada hurtles towards its worst wildfire season in history, a conspiracy theory has taken off online claiming environmentalists intentionally set some of the blazes.
“I bet a good portion of the wildfires raging across the country were started by green terrorists who want to give their climate change campaign a little boost,” Maxime Bernier, a former foreign minister-turned fringe party leader, said in a Jun 5 tweet.
So far in 2023, Canada has seen larger wildfires than any previous year at this point in the season, with more than three million hectares burned. Tens of thousands of people have evacuated as a result.
On TikTok, a video already viewed almost 20,000 times, claims the fires in Nova Scotia were set “on purpose to push a climate change agenda”.
One article speculates that since 90 per cent of Alberta’s fires could be “human-caused,” there is a possibility that “ecoterrorists” may be behind them.
As wildfires spread in Quebec, some questioned how all the blazes could have started on the same day. One Facebook video with more than one million views blames “a terrorist attack” for the flames.
But Karine Pelletier from the province’s Forest Fire Protection Agency said the causes are still under investigation.
“There are a lot which are caused by humans, but these are almost always accidents,” she said, noting that recent lightning strikes were to blame for many of Quebec’s wildfires.
Alberta Wildfire told AFP that unless lightning is involved, a blaze is classified as human-caused. This does not exclusively mean arson.
“It could be related to general causes, including agriculture, forest industry, powerlines, or oil and gas industry, railroad or residential wildfires,” said spokeswoman Melissa Story.
Nova Scotia officials have also said they are still investigating the origins of the province’s fires, which are presumed to be human-caused.
“Human-caused fires can be accidental, intentional or undetermined,” said Heather Fairbairn, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Fire Marshal of Nova Scotia. “Certainly, we are seeing the impacts of climate change which can increase fire risks.”
Source: CNA
