12,000 lightening strikes witnessed by wildfire-ravaged Canada province in a day

To fight more than 170 wildfires which were fueled by a record-smashing heatwave along with contributing to evacuating towns, on Saturday, the Canadian military was on standby as the government in Ottawa warned for a long and challenging summer ahead.

As said by the officials, 78 wildfires had sparked in the last two days out of the 174 fires which were active in the western province of British Columbia and most of them were caused due to lightning storms.

The director of provincial operations for British Columbia Wildlife Services, Cliff Chapman mentioned that they witnessed around 12,000 lightning strikes vaguely the previous day, as per the public broadcaster CBC.

Trapping warm air in the region, the immediate blame for the scorching heat has been placed on a high-pressure heat dome as climate change is making record-setting temperatures move frequent.

As per climate.gov. while the five hottest years on record have all occurred since 2012, globally the decade to 2019 was the hottest recorded. After early speaking with local, provincial and indigenous leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with an incident response group including several ministers on Friday.

With up to 350 military personnel providing logistical support to the region, an operation centre in Edmonton shall be established by the response group as claimed by them, according to Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan while military aircraft are also being deployed.

With several others still missing, around 1,000 people have fled with wildfires in British Columbia.