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Canadian wildfires ignite HAARP conspiracy theories online
As dry conditions led to an early start to the 2024 forest fire season in Canada, social media posts claimed an atmospheric project formerly operated by the US military, combined with solar explosions, sparked the flames. Experts tell AFP this is false; the effects of the research do not extend to the area of the fires and the magnitude of the blazes in the boreal forests is mostly due to climate conditions.
While rain and cooler weather have alleviated the situation in certain regions, an ongoing and intense drought has fed fires in northeastern British Columbia, northern Alberta, and along the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border, as of May 17. "None of the HAARP facility's features could trigger the fires," Tuija Pulkkinen(archived here), chair of climate and space sciences and engineering at the University of Michigan, told AFP on May 16. British Columbia Wildfire Service Information Officer Sarah Budd said that a third consecutive year of drought and other conditions attributed to climate change created a particularly flammable environment in the province's forests, which she predicted could become the norm moving forward.
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