Canadian Wildfires May Prompt Zombie Wave South of the Border, US Agency Claims

By Bulletin Staff

The wildfires that have ravaged Canada this summer may prompt a wave of zombies moving south across the country’s border with the United States, according to a new report from the Office of Zombie Control, part of US Customs and Border Protection.

Canada this year has suffered its worst wildfire season in the nation’s history, with blazes consuming an estimated 42 million acres, or about 5% of all the country’s forestlands, and forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people. Six fatalities have been linked to the wildfires to date.

Coverage of the impact of the blazes in the United States has focused on increased air pollution extending as far down as Virginia. Recent reporting suggests that smoke from wildfires may be undoing decades of progress on improving air quality.

“Little Obstacle to Crossings”

But the new report from the Office of Zombie Control (OZC) within CPB suggests that the fires could also drive a wave of zombie movement across Canada’s 4,000-mile, largely open border with the Lower 48 US states.

The report, “Zombie Risk Assessment: Implications of Canadian Wildfires and Cross-Border Movement,” suggests that as many as 2,000 of the undead may eventually cross the border into the United States from Canada as a result of wildfires north of the border.

“Zombies are known to move away from fire, and once they start moving in a given direction, they will continue moving forward steadily, if slowly, until they find living flesh to feast on or their path is interrupted by some natural or manufactured barrier. While the US and Canada maintain approximately 100 official checkpoints along the length of our shared border, in many areas the frontier is unobstructed, presenting little obstacle to crossings by the undead,” the OZC report reads.

Border Efforts Focused on the Living

Both countries have beefed up security in the years since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. They have deployed sensing and surveillance equipment, including sensors embedded in roads and video and thermal imaging systems. Both nation’s border agencies employ drones for aerial observation in remote areas.

Much of CPB’s focus has been on interdicting illegal drugs and contraband from entering the United States, although the agency has also emphasized that it is on the alert for potential terrorists trying to cross over the border as well.

However, those efforts are necessarily concentrated in areas where illegal crossings by the living are most likely to occur: at or near official checkpoints, near population centers, and in areas classified as wilderness but accessible by roads. Less surveilled are exactly the kinds of remote areas where zombies would have a better chance of survival than living humans due to terrain or weather conditions, the report asserts.

“Zombie Don’t Care If It’s Cold”

Liam Quill, a zombie security researcher with the Washington-based Center for Undead Research, agreed with the OZC’s suggestion that these inhospitable areas are potential crossing points for the living dead.

“Zombie don’t care if it’s cold, zombie don’t care if it’s raining, and zombie don’t care if there ain’t a roadside café to get a bit to eat. Zombie just gonna keep on moving forward through the most horrible terrain and conditions, even if it has to drag itself along with one rotting arm,” the researcher said.

Quill said that, while a number of smaller fires have burned areas in direct proximity to the border, the largest Canadian wildfires have predominantly occurred well north of the border with the Continental United States. The concern, the researcher said, is that even those fires burning far from the border could trigger waves of the undead that could reach the United States.

“We saw these Canadian wildfires cause sudden out-movements of the undead from a burn zone, and all of a sudden, weeks or months after the fire has been fully contained, the Canadian government is reporting that those fleeing zombies are turning up hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the burn zone,” Quill said. “You get a zombie from British Columbia turning up in New Brunswick.”

Few Attempted Undead Border Crashers to Date

The OZC report points to only a half-dozen cases where undead that have turned up at official US-Canada border crossings have been traced back to wildfires north of the border. All six of those zombies were eliminated by Canadian Mounties before they could reach the US side of the border.

The agency notes that it has not identified a single case of undocumented Canadian wildfire zombies appearing in US territory. Instead, it says that its estimate of as many as 2,000 potential undead border crossers is based on the scale of the wildfires, their proximity to population centers that are likely to be sources of zombies, and the availability of routes of travel from the fire zones to the border.

The OZC report concluded by calling for an update to CPB’s Northern Border Strategy to include greater exploration of the zombie threat at the border. The most recent, 2018 version of the document includes no mention of the undead.

“In the face of a relentless undead threat emanating from our northern border, it is imperative that we prioritize enhanced border security measures, robust interagency collaboration and swift response protocols to safeguard our nation against a potential rising tide of zombies,” the report concludes.

Official Crossings: “Buffets for the Undead”

Yelena Uzhenko, a science advisor at the Institute for the Study of Zombie Movements in Phoenix, called the report “unnecessarily alarmist” and said that the OZC is likely far overestimating the number of potential border crossings by the living dead. She criticized the report’s methodology, suggesting that the government is greatly exaggerating the undead’s physical capacity for crossing wilderness areas.

“Zombies aren’t going to look for a bridge to cross a raging river; they’re just going to walk straight into the water and get swept away in the current. They’re not going to look for a rope and belay down a cliff; they’re just going to walk straight over the edge and wind up a broken mass at the bottom. And they’re not going to walk along the side of a road to avoid traffic, they’re going to walk straight into the headlights of a semi and go splat,” Uzhenko said.

Uzhenko believes that virtually all attempted undead border crashers use official crossing points simply because that’s where living people are. “Zombies aren’t walking around looking for pretty scenery, they’re walking around looking for brains to eat. The border checkpoints, with lines of people waiting to cross, are going to be like buffets for the undead,” she said.

Note: The Bulletin of the Zombie Scientists is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons (living, dead or living dead) or actual events is entirely coincidental.

More Recent Posts

• Administration Weighs Deploying Undead to “Purify Woke Cities”
• President Fires Zombie Statistics Bureau Chief After Reported Rise in Undead Numbers
• Zombies of Different Generations Drawn to Different “Places of Meaning,” Study Finds
• “Z Visa” Program Would Let Wealthy Buy US Entry for Their Undead Relatives
• 6 Weeks after “Liberation Day,” Tariffs Still Loom for “Zombia”