To burn from the unknown

At approximately 3:47 p.m. in Canada, a bizarre event occurred. Across the country's landscape, several 300-metre-tall, or 984-foot-high, shiny metallic rods crashed down into the earth and stationed themselves without any kind of feasible pattern. There was no structure constructed or any form of attack. The government had no clue what was happening. This could be some kind of attack, or really anything; there were no clues as to what was happening. After a few hours, the bottom of the rods on all four sides began to make an electronic sound of unknown origins and started to climb up the sides, eventually reaching the middle, ending with the rod firing a wave of heat outward that travelled for miles.

A few more hours passed, and the rods were emitting a short but intense amount of heat as forests, homes, and really anything and everything set on fire out of the blue. Animals mindlessly ran around, some of which ran into the fires, and others started to eat humans and animals alike in a state of frenzy. The people attempted to get into cars, planes, and boats in order to escape; however, all the vehicles refused to start as the fires grew across the land and consumed all life.

Usually you`d think help would be on the way, but for the outside world, Canada looked and acted fine, as if a powerful illusion were fooling the planet. What were these rods? Why were they doing this? Where would one even find the answers?