A satellite video posted online this week purportedly shows numerous wildfires erupting simultaneously in Quebec.
More than 400 fires burned across Canada on Thursday, with over a third of them in the French-speaking province, according to The Associated Press.
Addison Smith, a reporter with Just the News, tweeted a satellite video apparently showing the multiple outbreaks.
The footage also has been making the rounds on TikTok.
“Quebec’s ‘wildfires’ all started at the same time. How?” Smith said.
Quebec’s “wildfires” all started at the same time. How? pic.twitter.com/qyZaYoVv7t
— Addison Smith (@AddisonSmithTV) June 8, 2023
Some have suggested online the fires were started in a malicious, coordinated attack.
The fires are so widespread they have sent a murky haze over much of the U.S. Northeast.
WOW! This is the view from the The George Washington bridge running from Manhattan, New York to New Jersey.
– This is all stemming from Central Canada, where wildfires are burning in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
– In total there are 211 reported wildfires burning in… pic.twitter.com/rDInGx85lZ
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) June 7, 2023
The Canadian government, in a news release Monday, said it expected “continued higher-than-normal fire activity across most of the country throughout the 2023 wildland fire season due to ongoing drought and long-range forecasts for warm temperatures.”
However, Quebec is not experiencing a drought, according to the University of Nebraska, Lincoln’s North American drought monitor.
In fact, just a very small portion of the province has even abnormally dry conditions.
Nonetheless, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre showed many of the “out of control fires” in Quebec.
The temperature in Quebec City on Thursday afternoon was 56 degrees Fahrenheit, which is below the historical average. In fact, it was raining there, and more rain was in the forecast.
Further, the temperatures look seasonal for the entire month so far.
The left-leaning fact-checker PolitiFact on Thursday shot down the notion that the fires were intentionally set, suggesting climate change is a likely culprit.
It also cited an Agence France-Presse story saying officials in Alberta province “found no evidence suggesting widespread arson.”
Alberta does have large swaths of the province under severe drought conditions and certainly is experiencing higher temperatures than Quebec. The highs there this week are in the 80s.
Of course that doesn’t explain what’s going on in Quebec, which PolitiFact noted has “most of the active fires.”
Was there some sort of coordinated effort to set off wildfires all at once in that province?
My home is burning ? from coast to coast we are on fire right now.. Quebec almost never has serious wildfires and the whole province practically caught on fire simultaneously. For any American friends that aren’t so familiar, Quebec is over twice the size of Texas. pic.twitter.com/8XwD3OmUBs
— Depressean (@Depressean_) June 7, 2023
Investigators should be able to determine this on the ground in the coming days.
For now, what we can say is the widespread wildfire outbreaks in Quebec, in particular, are strange.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
