紐時賞析／加拿大野火燎原 人民被迫拋棄家園逃生

‘Leaving Behind All They Own’ as Wildfires Ravage Canada

加拿大野火燎原 人民被迫拋棄家園逃生

Judy Greenwood did not want to leave. But when the evacuation alerts on her phone blared repeatedly and emergency officials knocked on her door, she and her husband loaded their four cats into the car and drove away from their rural hamlet to escape approaching wildfires.

茱蒂．葛林伍德不想離開。但當手機的疏散警報刺耳地響個不停，緊急應變人員也來敲門，她與丈夫只得將4隻貓帶上車，驅車離開他們的偏僻村落，逃離逐漸逼近的野火。

In much of the western province of Alberta, this time of year has long been wildfire season. But this year, a large volume of fires in the boreal forest have come early and have been exceptionally extensive, leading the province to declare a state of emergency.

在加拿大西部亞伯達省的大部分地區，每年這個時節通常是野火季。但今年，北方針葉林很早就出現大量火勢，範圍也特別大，促使該省宣布進入緊急狀態。

As of Tuesday morning, about 30,000 people had fled their homes in the sparsely populated, largely northern areas of the province as 89 active wildfires were burning across nearly 1 million acres.

至周二上午，在該省主要位於北部的人煙稀少地區，已有約3萬民眾撤離家園。89處野火仍在焚燒，面積近100萬英畝。

There have already been 409 fires this season — which typically runs from March 1 to Oct. 31 — an unusually high number. And for residents of vulnerable areas, that has evoked uneasy memories of 2016, when raging flames moved from the forest into the oil sands capital of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

當地野火季通常自3月1日持續至10月31日，本季已發生409場大火，數字高得不尋常。而對高風險區居民而言，這喚起他們對2016年的不安回憶，當年火勢從森林一路延燒至油砂重鎮麥克默里堡。

That conflagration forced the evacuation of more than 90,000 people, destroyed more than 2,400 homes and businesses, and disrupted production at the United States’ largest source of imported oil. At more than 4 billion Canadian dollars, it remains Canada’s most costly disaster.

那場大火迫使超過9萬名民眾撤離，摧毀2,400棟民宅及商業建築，打斷這個美國最大進口石油來源的生產，造成逾40億元加幣損失，至今仍是加國損失最慘的災難。

As was the case during the Fort McMurray fires, many of the current evacuees, a group that includes thousands of members of First Nations communities, have sought refuge in Edmonton, the province’s capital and second-largest city.

如同麥克默里堡大火，這次逃難民眾包含數以千計的原住民「第一民族」社群，大多湧至該省首府、第二大城艾德蒙頓避難。

Uncertainty plagues many evacuees. Thick smoke hanging over many areas has made it impossible to determine through aerial surveys the fate of many houses and other buildings.

不確定性讓許多逃難民眾不安。許多地區濃煙密布，透過空中勘測也無法確定民房與其他建築狀況。

“No question that this is a challenging time,” Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, told reporters Monday afternoon. “Tens of thousands of people have been forced from their homes and their jobs. They’re leaving behind all they own, wondering if they will lose everything that they’ve worked for.”

亞伯達省省長戴思敏周一下午告訴記者：「現在無疑是艱難時刻。數以萬計民眾被迫捨棄家園與工作。他們拋棄了所有的東西，不知道是否將失去平生打拚換來的一切。」

Mike Ellis, Alberta’s public safety minister, told reporters that there were limits to what any government or agency could do to extinguish the fires. In past years, a change in weather has ultimately been the only force that has brought blazes under control.

亞伯達省公共安全局局長艾利斯向記者表示，任何政府或機構對於撲滅火勢能做的十分有限。過去幾年，天氣變化最終成為控制火勢的唯一力量。

“I let everybody know that because there is no silver-bullet solution in our response,” he said.

他說：「對此我毫不諱言，因為我們也沒有靈丹妙藥能夠因應。」

文／Ian Austen, Amber Bracken, Vjosa Isai　譯／陳曉慈

說文解字看新聞

【陳曉慈】

全球暖化效應連「北國」加拿大也不能倖免，野火高風險區域的居民手機頻頻收到下令緊急撤離的簡訊，blare(out)指發出嘈雜刺耳的聲響。

英國作家毛姆(W. Somerset Maugham)在名著《人性枷鎖》(Of Human Bondage)中寫道：the blare of trumpets, the hooting of whistles, the hum of voices.對不同聲音的描述很細膩。Blare當名詞時也可指眩目的光線或色彩，例如a blare of sunlight flooded the room 一道刺眼陽光灑滿房內。

Premier作形容詞時指箇中翹楚，如world's premier authority on heart disease（全球心臟病權威）；名詞指最高行政首長，總理首相，例如台灣的行政院長。英國、日本、印度用Prime Minister。Premier在加拿大和澳洲指省長。

Silver bullet源自西方民間故事中能殺死狼人或女巫的「銀子彈」，衍伸為複雜問題的簡單解方，靈丹妙藥。例如1930年代被發現的青黴素是醫治細菌感染的silver bullet。