美国国家公共电台 NPR--Firefighters in Canada are spread thin because of the hundreds of wildfires

Firefighters in Canada are spread thin because of the hundreds of wildfires

Transcript¹

Fire crews in Canada are getting foreign reinforcements as the country deals with its worst-ever start to wildfire season. Many of the fires are in remote areas and could burn for months.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

Another round of smoke from Canadian wildfires is drifting south, blanketing parts of the Midwest and headed for the East Coast.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Millions of Americans will wake up this morning to hazy² and in some places hazardous³ skies. Around 450 wildfires are currently burning across Canada, which is experiencing a particularly early and intense fire season.

MART?NEZ: NPR's Nathan Rott is in Quebec.

Nate, how close are you to some of those wildfires?

NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE⁴: Well, A, I am learning that close is a relative term in the province of Quebec. I'm in a city called Val-d'Or, which is in the western part of the province, about a six-hour drive north of Montreal. And there is a cluster of major wildfires burning a ways north from here, like, a couple more hours. But only firefighting personnel are being allowed into those areas right now currently, and despite some rain over the last couple of days, it's kind of unclear when that's going to change and when those roads will open up.

MART?NEZ: Yeah, and considering the amount of smoke that's drifting across the border, I mean, the wildfires have got to be intense and got to be massive.

ROTT: Yeah, they are huge. I mean, here in Quebec, the amount of land that's burnt is already 10 times what they would normally see an entire year. And, you know, as you said, we're still really early in the season, only in mid-June. I was talking to a fire information officer, Melanie Morin, here yesterday at one of their bases, and she said that the scale of this is really complicating⁵ things nationally, is because there are so many fires burning in so many provinces at the exact same time.

MELANIE MORIN: And that's what's not common. And it has limited us being able to help each other within provinces. And that is one of the reasons why many of the agencies have had to go internationally for help.

ROTT: So typically, A, Canadian firefighters move around from region to region in the summer to help out when a place pops off, pretty similar to how we do it in the U.S. But right now, with so much fire, they're spread really thin.

MART?NEZ: And Melanie mentioned international help. Where are the firefighters coming from?

ROTT: All over the place - I mean, New Zealand, South Africa, France. A bunch of teams came in earlier this week from Portugal, Spain and the U.S. I actually went to meet two U.S.-based hotshot crews at the airport here in Val-d'Or yesterday, hotshots being the creme de la creme of U.S. ground crews. And for one of the 20-person teams from Helena, Mont., this was already their second Canadian deployment⁶ this year. I asked their acting⁷ superintendent⁸, Tighe Stoyanoff, what the biggest difference was fighting fires here versus⁹ the U.S. - you know, besides the obvious language barrier, which he said they've been using apps to address - and he said access in these dense¹⁰, remote boreal forests has been a real issue.

TIGHE STOYANOFF: It's challenging to move around in and challenging to see where the fire is, challenging to see a quarter-mile sometimes. So they use aviation assets pretty heavily - scoopers and helicopters. Helicopters are almost like pickup¹² trucks up here.

ROTT: And scoopers are fixed-wing aircraft, airplanes that literally¹³ scoop¹¹ water from lakes or big bodies of water and then dump them on the fires.

MART?NEZ: Given, though, the remoteness of these fires, is it safe to say that they're going to be burning for a while?

ROTT: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're still early in the summer. I've heard some people say that they expect these fires to burn until it starts snowing, which to be clear, A, as you know, being in California - that's not necessarily bad. Fire is a part of a lot of these landscapes. The concern, though, is that this has happened so intensely, so early in the season and that it's going to continue here for a while.

MART?NEZ: All right. That's NPR's Nathan Rott in Quebec.

Wear a mask, Nate.

ROTT: Yeah. I appreciate it, A.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 hazy   

adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的

参考例句：

• We couldn't see far because it was so hazy.雾气蒙蒙妨碍了我们的视线。
• I have a hazy memory of those early years.对那些早先的岁月我有着朦胧的记忆。

3 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 complicating   

使复杂化( complicate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• High spiking fever with chills is suggestive of a complicating pylephlebitis. 伴有寒战的高热，暗示合并门静脉炎。
• In America these actions become executive puberty rites, complicating relationships that are already complicated enough. 在美国，这些行动成了行政青春期的惯例，使本来已经够复杂的关系变得更复杂了。

6 deployment   

n. 部署,展开

参考例句：

• He has inquired out the deployment of the enemy troops. 他已查出敌军的兵力部署情况。
• Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely used customer-driven quality, design and manufacturing management tool. 质量功能展开(quality function deployment,QFD)是一个广泛应用的顾客需求驱动的设计、制造和质量管理工具。

7 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

8 superintendent   

n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长

参考例句：

• He was soon promoted to the post of superintendent of Foreign Trade.他很快就被擢升为对外贸易总监。
• He decided to call the superintendent of the building.他决定给楼房管理员打电话。

9 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

10 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

11 scoop   

n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出

参考例句：

• In the morning he must get his boy to scoop it out.早上一定得叫佣人把它剜出来。
• Uh,one scoop of coffee and one scoop of chocolate for me.我要一勺咖啡的和一勺巧克力的。

12 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

13 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。