Canadian PM convenes emergency meeting on wildfire crisis as 20,000 evacuating

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau convened an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the wildfire crisis in the Northwest Territories, where residents are leaving after an evacuation order.

Defense Minister Bill Blair, speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) after the meeting, said the federal government was closely monitoring the evacuations and was prepared to quickly airlift residents if land routes get cut off.

Mass evacuation of areas in the territory is ongoing, including the capital city of Yellowknife, the territory's largest community with a population of more than 20,000. Residents were ordered to leave by noon Friday. This is Canada's worst-ever wildfire season with more than 1,000 active fires burning across the country, including 265 in the Northwest Territories.

Experts say climate change has exacerbated the wildfire problem. About 134,000 square kilometers of land in Canada have been scorched so far, more than six times a 10-year average. Nearly 200,000 people have been forced to evacuate at some point this season.