B.C. wildfire map: if the fires burned Canadian cities, they might look like this

Wildfires have scorched over 78,000 hectares of British Columbia since they started flaring up this summer.

They have forced thousands of people out of their homes, and placed many more on alert.

Coverage of B.C. wildfires on Globalnews.ca:

For some, like those who live in the cities, it’s difficult to appreciate the scale of thefires as they happen in rural areas.

CKNW producer John O’Dowd has tried to give a sense of the total area covered by the wildfires in a series of tweets.

They show how much of Vancouver would be singed by a fire that reached almost 80,000 hectares:

That’s downtown, Kitsilano, Shaughnessy, UBC and East Vancouver, all charred — to say nothing of neighbouring communities like Richmond, Burnaby and New Westminster.

O’Dowd made his map using the Google Maps Area Calculator Tool, which lives on the website Daft Logic.

READ MORE: B.C. wildfire photos: images show devastation as fires rage parts of B.C.

The tool allows users to lay points on Google Maps and draw over cities and regions.

Global News used the tool to estimate what over 78,000 hectares worth of wildfire might look like in six Canadian cities, and three more around the world.

Here’s what those cities would look like if they were covered by wildfires the way B.C. is right now:

Vancouver

Calgary

Edmonton

Winnipeg

Toronto

Montreal

New York

Los Angeles

Paris