Canada’s resources to fight historic wildfires are “exhausted,” Justin Trudeau worried in a press conference on Wednesday along with a handful of ministers.

“We see that we are in a worse year than what we already had and our resources are exhausted, but we are sticking with it as much as possible,” argued the prime minister.

All wildfirefighters are hard at work, while some 1,000 international firefighters are currently assisting their Canadian and Quebec counterparts.

After interventions in Alberta and Nova Scotia, the Canadian Armed Forces are active in Quebec, where they “will contribute to the planning and coordination of air transport,” said Secretary of Defense Anita Anand.

Around 300 soldiers are currently deployed in Sept-Îles alone. The CC-130H Hercules military aircraft is used in particular to transport food to displaced people.

With more than 414 fires across the country, 239 of which are “out of control”, Emergency Preparedness Secretary Bill Blair said it was “the toughest year on record”.

“Everyone pitches in, 24 hours a day,” he said.

More than 20,000 people across the country continue to be evacuated from their homes. While that’s a decrease, the number remains significant, Blair said.

Residual smoke from the Quebec fires is covering several cities in the south of the country, particularly Montreal and Ottawa, as well as much of the eastern United States and as far north as Texas.

Air quality is so poor that Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has suggested that more vulnerable people wear masks outside, including “pregnant women, young children, the elderly, anyone suffering from chronic illnesses and particularly respiratory diseases”.