Or go back to fighting the fires effectively with fire guards not just letting them burn out and backfires that get away
Canada: Alberta wildfires force nearly 30,000 residents to flee
- Thread starter Wise
- Start date
Time to get rid of the bintoskool experts. Perfessers in universities are not the most qualified to run fire operations. Like structure fires, forest fires require "hit it hard, hit it fast" method of control. BC's 3 person Rapattack crews with a pickup and piss cans just isn't the right way in most cases. Especially when it takes two days for them to go inspect a report of a fire in an area the experts deem low risk. That is essentially what caused the only highway to the West Coast of Vancouver Island to close for two months last year. A set fire on a cliff in a difficult to reach spot did not receive the proper attention at the outset, even though it is right above a lake, they managed to let it burn right down to the lake. An immediate hit with a chopper with a monsoon bucket would have prevented this whole clusterfuck.
Only if there are environmentalists with matches loose in the area.
That fire burned through a clear cut to the south of the higway and was stopped by live trees. Easy to find on google maps.
Fires from 2023 smoldering under snow reveal Canada's dangerous new reality
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Thomas Seal and Robert Tuttle
Published Mar 31, 2024 • 4 minute read
BC_CANADA_WILDFIRES
(Bloomberg) — As skiers glide down the slopes of British Columbia’s Whistler Mountain and ice fishers drop their lines into frozen lakes in Alberta, dozens of the fires whose smoke darkened North America’s skies last year are still burning — with some smoldering beneath layers of snow.
These so-called “zombie fires” are a sign of a grim new normal that’s wreaking havoc even in far northern countries like Canada: a fire season that almost never ends.
The western province of BC had 90 zombie blazes still burning as of mid-March, holdovers from last year’s record fire season, while neighboring Alberta started the year with 64 fires carried over from 2023 — more than 10 times the five-year average. As spring temperatures melt snow and uncover land parched by drought, those fires and new ones are poised to flare up, posing a fresh threat to Canada’s forests, not to mention the world’s atmosphere.
“We really don’t get out of wildfire season like we have historically,” said Rob de Pruis, director of consumer and industry relations at the Insurance Bureau of Canada. “They’re a real and present danger, and wildfires are happening right now.”
The worst fire season on record in Canada made global headlines last year when smoke from the blazes blotted out the skies above New York and other US cities, spawned a rare pyro-tornado and forced the evacuations of an estimated 232,000 people. The fires burned an area that was more than seven times the historic average — or about 4% of the country’s forests, according to a new study.
The flames caused more than C$1 billion ($740 million) in insured damages, according to the insurance bureau. They also may have released emissions that are more than twice the annual carbon output of the nation’s economy, a top government scientist has estimated.
This year, with 71% of Canada abnormally dry or in drought in February and swathes of the country as much as 5C (9F) warmer than normal, governments and companies are bracing for a repeat. Alberta declared a start to its wildfire season on Feb. 20 — the earliest in recent years — and a spokesman for Quebec’s forest-protection agency said the province’s season is poised to start as much as four weeks earlier than usual.
Nationally, the federal government has invested C$170 million in a satellite mission to monitor fires, while the armed forces are training more soldiers as support firefighters.
British Columbia’s provincial government created a permanent Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness in 2022 — the year after the town of Lytton burned to the ground in a record-breaking heatwave — to deal with the onslaught of fires and floods. That replaces the previous approach, where resources were mobilized temporarily in response to events. “I exist in a state of anxiety on behalf of the province,” the department’s minister, Bowinn Ma, said in a phone interview. “It has become apparent that that kind of response-focused model just wasn’t sufficient.”
The province is upgrading firefighting equipment, working to get more access to aircraft, testing night-vision technology to extend fire suppression into the hours of darkness and looking at how to use artificial intelligence to predict fires.
The province’s wildfire service also is shifting to operating year-round — rather than seasonally — and has increased its full-time staff more than 50% since 2022. British Columbia plans to almost triple the number of prescribed and cultural forest burns to pre-empt and curb wildfires this year: 61 are planned.
CANADA_WILDFIRE
The changing weather patterns are affecting how businesses operate, too. Telecom company Telus Corp. has ramped up clearing brush around its “million-dollar” cell towers in areas at risk of fires, so communities don’t get cut off, said Phil Moore, vice president of real estate and business continuity.
The wireless provider has invested more than C$100 million in protecting infrastructure over the last five years, he said, and it’s helping fund a German startup called Dryad Networks GmbH, which uses sensors to detect wildfires earlier.
Perhaps no industry has been more affected by fires in the past decade than Canada’s oil and gas sector, which was forced to shut down more than 1 million barrels of daily output during a devastating blaze in 2016. The fire razed sections of Fort McMurray — the largest city near most producers’ oil-sands operations — and caused about C$3.7 billion in insured losses, making it Canada’s costliest natural disaster.
During last year’s fire season, energy producers including Chevron Corp., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Baytex Energy Corp. at times shut production equivalent to about 300,000 barrels of oil a day as blazes encroached on wells and processing infrastructure.
The drought conditions that are spawning the fires can also hurt producers by cutting off the water they need for operating oil-sands mines and wells.
The Alberta Energy Regulator in December warned energy companies to “plan accordingly” when applying for licenses to divert water from rivers and to prepare contingency plans. Average monthly precipitation from October to the end of February was the lowest in at least 10 years in five of Alberta’s production areas, including near Lac La Biche, Fort McMurray, Slave Lake, Peace River and Grande Prairie.
The issue is front of mind for investors. Analysts asking executives from Suncor Energy Inc., Imperial Oil Ltd. and Canadian Natural about their preparations for the drought conditions on their recent earnings calls. “We’re going to continue to have to manage that carefully,” Imperial Chief Executive Officer Brad Corson said last month of the risks to water supply.
There’s one consolation: 2023’s fires scorched such large swathes of forest that in some places, smaller fires won’t be able to merge with each other to create massive contiguous blazes, said Thomas Smith, an associate professor of environmental geography at the London School of Economics.
“The connectivity is certainly going to slow down and stop the spread of some of these fires,” Smith said. “But I don’t expect it it to be a very quiet fire year.”
—With assistance from Danielle Bochove and Mathieu Dion.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Thomas Seal and Robert Tuttle
Published Mar 31, 2024 • 4 minute read
BC_CANADA_WILDFIRES
(Bloomberg) — As skiers glide down the slopes of British Columbia’s Whistler Mountain and ice fishers drop their lines into frozen lakes in Alberta, dozens of the fires whose smoke darkened North America’s skies last year are still burning — with some smoldering beneath layers of snow.
These so-called “zombie fires” are a sign of a grim new normal that’s wreaking havoc even in far northern countries like Canada: a fire season that almost never ends.
The western province of BC had 90 zombie blazes still burning as of mid-March, holdovers from last year’s record fire season, while neighboring Alberta started the year with 64 fires carried over from 2023 — more than 10 times the five-year average. As spring temperatures melt snow and uncover land parched by drought, those fires and new ones are poised to flare up, posing a fresh threat to Canada’s forests, not to mention the world’s atmosphere.
“We really don’t get out of wildfire season like we have historically,” said Rob de Pruis, director of consumer and industry relations at the Insurance Bureau of Canada. “They’re a real and present danger, and wildfires are happening right now.”
The worst fire season on record in Canada made global headlines last year when smoke from the blazes blotted out the skies above New York and other US cities, spawned a rare pyro-tornado and forced the evacuations of an estimated 232,000 people. The fires burned an area that was more than seven times the historic average — or about 4% of the country’s forests, according to a new study.
The flames caused more than C$1 billion ($740 million) in insured damages, according to the insurance bureau. They also may have released emissions that are more than twice the annual carbon output of the nation’s economy, a top government scientist has estimated.
This year, with 71% of Canada abnormally dry or in drought in February and swathes of the country as much as 5C (9F) warmer than normal, governments and companies are bracing for a repeat. Alberta declared a start to its wildfire season on Feb. 20 — the earliest in recent years — and a spokesman for Quebec’s forest-protection agency said the province’s season is poised to start as much as four weeks earlier than usual.
Nationally, the federal government has invested C$170 million in a satellite mission to monitor fires, while the armed forces are training more soldiers as support firefighters.
British Columbia’s provincial government created a permanent Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness in 2022 — the year after the town of Lytton burned to the ground in a record-breaking heatwave — to deal with the onslaught of fires and floods. That replaces the previous approach, where resources were mobilized temporarily in response to events. “I exist in a state of anxiety on behalf of the province,” the department’s minister, Bowinn Ma, said in a phone interview. “It has become apparent that that kind of response-focused model just wasn’t sufficient.”
The province is upgrading firefighting equipment, working to get more access to aircraft, testing night-vision technology to extend fire suppression into the hours of darkness and looking at how to use artificial intelligence to predict fires.
The province’s wildfire service also is shifting to operating year-round — rather than seasonally — and has increased its full-time staff more than 50% since 2022. British Columbia plans to almost triple the number of prescribed and cultural forest burns to pre-empt and curb wildfires this year: 61 are planned.
CANADA_WILDFIRE
The changing weather patterns are affecting how businesses operate, too. Telecom company Telus Corp. has ramped up clearing brush around its “million-dollar” cell towers in areas at risk of fires, so communities don’t get cut off, said Phil Moore, vice president of real estate and business continuity.
The wireless provider has invested more than C$100 million in protecting infrastructure over the last five years, he said, and it’s helping fund a German startup called Dryad Networks GmbH, which uses sensors to detect wildfires earlier.
Perhaps no industry has been more affected by fires in the past decade than Canada’s oil and gas sector, which was forced to shut down more than 1 million barrels of daily output during a devastating blaze in 2016. The fire razed sections of Fort McMurray — the largest city near most producers’ oil-sands operations — and caused about C$3.7 billion in insured losses, making it Canada’s costliest natural disaster.
During last year’s fire season, energy producers including Chevron Corp., Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Baytex Energy Corp. at times shut production equivalent to about 300,000 barrels of oil a day as blazes encroached on wells and processing infrastructure.
The drought conditions that are spawning the fires can also hurt producers by cutting off the water they need for operating oil-sands mines and wells.
The Alberta Energy Regulator in December warned energy companies to “plan accordingly” when applying for licenses to divert water from rivers and to prepare contingency plans. Average monthly precipitation from October to the end of February was the lowest in at least 10 years in five of Alberta’s production areas, including near Lac La Biche, Fort McMurray, Slave Lake, Peace River and Grande Prairie.
The issue is front of mind for investors. Analysts asking executives from Suncor Energy Inc., Imperial Oil Ltd. and Canadian Natural about their preparations for the drought conditions on their recent earnings calls. “We’re going to continue to have to manage that carefully,” Imperial Chief Executive Officer Brad Corson said last month of the risks to water supply.
There’s one consolation: 2023’s fires scorched such large swathes of forest that in some places, smaller fires won’t be able to merge with each other to create massive contiguous blazes, said Thomas Smith, an associate professor of environmental geography at the London School of Economics.
“The connectivity is certainly going to slow down and stop the spread of some of these fires,” Smith said. “But I don’t expect it it to be a very quiet fire year.”
—With assistance from Danielle Bochove and Mathieu Dion.
Fires from 2023 smoldering under snow reveal Canada's dangerous new reality
These so-called “zombie fires” are a sign of a grim new normal that’s wreaking havoc.
Canadian wildfires ’entirely’ drove surge in global tree loss in 2023, study says
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published Apr 04, 2024 • 1 minute read
A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were "entirely" to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses. Hot spots from the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire burn in Scotch Creek, B.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.
A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were "entirely" to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses. Hot spots from the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire burn in Scotch Creek, B.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were “entirely” to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses.
The study released by researchers at the University of Maryland on the Global Forest Watch website says tree cover loss in 2023 reached 28.3 million hectares globally, a 24 per cent jump driven by Canada’s loss of 8.6 million hectares last year.
Without taking Canada’s losses into account, global tree loss would have decreased by four per cent in 2023, the report says.
The report says more than 90 per cent of Canada’s tree losses last year were due to fires that razed 7.76 million hectares of forest, a “five-fold increase” compared to 2022.
It says Canada’s total loss of tree cover last year, including non-fire-related losses, more than tripled.
“Like in many areas of the world, extensive drought and increased temperatures driven by climate change were widespread across Canada,” the report says.
“High temperatures create dry and extremely flammable fuel for fires, meaning that fires are more likely to start, and also more likely to turn into megafires.”
Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, with the Interagency Forest Fire Centre reporting 18.5 million hectares of land was burned, more than double the area of tree loss described by the University of Maryland researchers.
The BC Wildfire Service said in March that forecasters were worried about the potential for another difficult fire season this year, with drought conditions at the end of 2023 across wide swaths of the province.
BC Wildfire Service director of operations Cliff Chapman said at the time that the province needed between 40 and 60 millimetres of rain over the last two weeks of March in order for parched areas to return to what he would consider a “neutral state” in terms of fire risks.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published Apr 04, 2024 • 1 minute read
A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were "entirely" to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses. Hot spots from the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire burn in Scotch Creek, B.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.
A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were "entirely" to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses. Hot spots from the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire burn in Scotch Creek, B.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were “entirely” to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses.
The study released by researchers at the University of Maryland on the Global Forest Watch website says tree cover loss in 2023 reached 28.3 million hectares globally, a 24 per cent jump driven by Canada’s loss of 8.6 million hectares last year.
Without taking Canada’s losses into account, global tree loss would have decreased by four per cent in 2023, the report says.
The report says more than 90 per cent of Canada’s tree losses last year were due to fires that razed 7.76 million hectares of forest, a “five-fold increase” compared to 2022.
It says Canada’s total loss of tree cover last year, including non-fire-related losses, more than tripled.
“Like in many areas of the world, extensive drought and increased temperatures driven by climate change were widespread across Canada,” the report says.
“High temperatures create dry and extremely flammable fuel for fires, meaning that fires are more likely to start, and also more likely to turn into megafires.”
Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, with the Interagency Forest Fire Centre reporting 18.5 million hectares of land was burned, more than double the area of tree loss described by the University of Maryland researchers.
The BC Wildfire Service said in March that forecasters were worried about the potential for another difficult fire season this year, with drought conditions at the end of 2023 across wide swaths of the province.
BC Wildfire Service director of operations Cliff Chapman said at the time that the province needed between 40 and 60 millimetres of rain over the last two weeks of March in order for parched areas to return to what he would consider a “neutral state” in terms of fire risks.
Canadian wildfires ’entirely’ drove surge in global tree loss in 2023, study says
Without taking Canada's losses into account, global tree loss would have decreased by four per cent in 2023, the report says.
Just think if those green weanies didn’t light fires .Canadian wildfires ’entirely’ drove surge in global tree loss in 2023, study says
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published Apr 04, 2024 • 1 minute read
A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were "entirely" to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses. Hot spots from the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire burn in Scotch Creek, B.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.
A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were "entirely" to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses. Hot spots from the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire burn in Scotch Creek, B.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — A global forest study says Canadian wildfires last year were “entirely” to blame for a worldwide surge in tree losses.
The study released by researchers at the University of Maryland on the Global Forest Watch website says tree cover loss in 2023 reached 28.3 million hectares globally, a 24 per cent jump driven by Canada’s loss of 8.6 million hectares last year.
Without taking Canada’s losses into account, global tree loss would have decreased by four per cent in 2023, the report says.
The report says more than 90 per cent of Canada’s tree losses last year were due to fires that razed 7.76 million hectares of forest, a “five-fold increase” compared to 2022.
It says Canada’s total loss of tree cover last year, including non-fire-related losses, more than tripled.
“Like in many areas of the world, extensive drought and increased temperatures driven by climate change were widespread across Canada,” the report says.
“High temperatures create dry and extremely flammable fuel for fires, meaning that fires are more likely to start, and also more likely to turn into megafires.”
Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, with the Interagency Forest Fire Centre reporting 18.5 million hectares of land was burned, more than double the area of tree loss described by the University of Maryland researchers.
The BC Wildfire Service said in March that forecasters were worried about the potential for another difficult fire season this year, with drought conditions at the end of 2023 across wide swaths of the province.
BC Wildfire Service director of operations Cliff Chapman said at the time that the province needed between 40 and 60 millimetres of rain over the last two weeks of March in order for parched areas to return to what he would consider a “neutral state” in terms of fire risks.
Canadian wildfires ’entirely’ drove surge in global tree loss in 2023, study says
Without taking Canada's losses into account, global tree loss would have decreased by four per cent in 2023, the report says.
Drought, heat raise risk of repeat of last summer’s record-breaking wildfires
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Mia Rabson
Published Apr 10, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 4 minute read
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires.
OTTAWA — Persistent drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said Wednesday as they warned about the urgent need to address climate change.
“We can expect that the wildfire season will start sooner, end later and potentially be more explosive,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan told a news conference Wednesday.
The 2023 fire season was Canada’s worst on record, with more than 6,600 fires burning more than 15 million hectares, an area almost twice the size of Lake Superior. It forced more than 230,000 people from their homes — including the entire city of Yellowknife — and created unprecedented smoke conditions across much of the country and into the United States.
Eight firefighters died battling the blazes and Canada expects to spend more than $750 million in disaster assistance alone. That does not include the billions of dollars spent fighting the fires in the first place.
A briefing document forecasting the fire risk for this spring shows conditions are already ripe for an early and above-normal fire risk from Quebec all the way to British Columbia in both April and May.
The forecast is based on having had a warmer-than-normal winter with minimal snow and widespread drought, particularly in the Prairies. There is also a high probability for above-normal temperatures in April, May and June. Western Canada, eastern Ontario and western Quebec are currently facing the highest risk.
The briefing includes a caveat that forecasting precipitation levels is not very reliable so the warnings are based on current conditions, and could change if more rain falls this spring than is currently expected.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre lists 65 fires already burning, mainly in B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories. More than half are fires that started in 2023, smouldered underground throughout the winter and have since re-emerged. Most of the fires currently burning are under control.
Human activity is typically the main fire risk factor in the spring, said Michael Norton, the director general of the Northern Forestry Centre at Natural Resources Canada.
Preventing fires from starting in the first place is critical, and in the spring most fires are human-caused, including through careless burning, campfires, fireworks, and the heat from off-road vehicles igniting grass or other debris on the ground.
Lightning becomes a primary source of wildfires during the summer, once thunderstorms become more common.
About 70 per cent of the fires between January and May 2023 were started by humans, compared with fewer than 20 per cent of the fires that started in June, July and August.
The low level of snow in most of Canada is among the key reasons for the higher risks this spring. British Columbia’s snowpack for April is at a record low 67 per cent, said Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the BC River Forecast Centre.
“Typically speaking, drought and wildfire go hand in hand, so it’s not setting up to be a great season,” Boyd said.
“But it still just depends on what the weather conditions are. If we have last year’s spring weather conditions this year, it will be worse.”
Sajjan said Canada and the provinces and territories have been working for months to prepare for a bad fire season this year and will be ready.
That includes more equipment and more trained firefighters, said Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Ottawa now has agreements with 11 of the 13 provinces and territories to deliver $256 million in firefighting equipment, including trucks, drones and planes.
Wilkinson also said the 2022 promise to train 1,000 firefighters over five years may end up producing that many before the end of 2024. Some of that training includes urban firefighters, who need additional training to handle wildfires as they increasingly bear down on cities and towns.
On Wednesday, Sajjan said the government is also responding to the need for more hands on deck by doubling the tax credit for volunteer firefighters from $3,000 to $6,000, largely as a recruitment and retention tool.
Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, said the chiefs had asked for a $10,000 credit, but this is a good start.
“While this particular credit most benefits volunteer firefighters, there is a ripple effect to the entire fire service,” McMullen said in an interview. “Although it’s not quite where we wanted it to be, we are recognizing this as a positive move in the right direction.”
NDP MP Gord Johns, who has also long advocated for the credit to go to $10,000, agreed that the government’s move was a good start but not enough. Johns said Canada has lost 30,000 volunteer firefighters and search and rescue personnel since 2016.
“We need to do everything we can to try to ensure that we support recruitment,” he said.
Johns also said Canada needs to invest in a national firefighting team, with 400 personnel and a fleet of planes to support provinces.
With the coming fire season looking to be as bad as 2023, if not worse, “the federal government needs to step up their game,” Johns said.
— with files from Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax and Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Mia Rabson
Published Apr 10, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 4 minute read
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires.
OTTAWA — Persistent drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said Wednesday as they warned about the urgent need to address climate change.
“We can expect that the wildfire season will start sooner, end later and potentially be more explosive,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan told a news conference Wednesday.
The 2023 fire season was Canada’s worst on record, with more than 6,600 fires burning more than 15 million hectares, an area almost twice the size of Lake Superior. It forced more than 230,000 people from their homes — including the entire city of Yellowknife — and created unprecedented smoke conditions across much of the country and into the United States.
Eight firefighters died battling the blazes and Canada expects to spend more than $750 million in disaster assistance alone. That does not include the billions of dollars spent fighting the fires in the first place.
A briefing document forecasting the fire risk for this spring shows conditions are already ripe for an early and above-normal fire risk from Quebec all the way to British Columbia in both April and May.
The forecast is based on having had a warmer-than-normal winter with minimal snow and widespread drought, particularly in the Prairies. There is also a high probability for above-normal temperatures in April, May and June. Western Canada, eastern Ontario and western Quebec are currently facing the highest risk.
The briefing includes a caveat that forecasting precipitation levels is not very reliable so the warnings are based on current conditions, and could change if more rain falls this spring than is currently expected.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre lists 65 fires already burning, mainly in B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories. More than half are fires that started in 2023, smouldered underground throughout the winter and have since re-emerged. Most of the fires currently burning are under control.
Human activity is typically the main fire risk factor in the spring, said Michael Norton, the director general of the Northern Forestry Centre at Natural Resources Canada.
Preventing fires from starting in the first place is critical, and in the spring most fires are human-caused, including through careless burning, campfires, fireworks, and the heat from off-road vehicles igniting grass or other debris on the ground.
Lightning becomes a primary source of wildfires during the summer, once thunderstorms become more common.
About 70 per cent of the fires between January and May 2023 were started by humans, compared with fewer than 20 per cent of the fires that started in June, July and August.
The low level of snow in most of Canada is among the key reasons for the higher risks this spring. British Columbia’s snowpack for April is at a record low 67 per cent, said Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the BC River Forecast Centre.
“Typically speaking, drought and wildfire go hand in hand, so it’s not setting up to be a great season,” Boyd said.
“But it still just depends on what the weather conditions are. If we have last year’s spring weather conditions this year, it will be worse.”
Sajjan said Canada and the provinces and territories have been working for months to prepare for a bad fire season this year and will be ready.
That includes more equipment and more trained firefighters, said Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Ottawa now has agreements with 11 of the 13 provinces and territories to deliver $256 million in firefighting equipment, including trucks, drones and planes.
Wilkinson also said the 2022 promise to train 1,000 firefighters over five years may end up producing that many before the end of 2024. Some of that training includes urban firefighters, who need additional training to handle wildfires as they increasingly bear down on cities and towns.
On Wednesday, Sajjan said the government is also responding to the need for more hands on deck by doubling the tax credit for volunteer firefighters from $3,000 to $6,000, largely as a recruitment and retention tool.
Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, said the chiefs had asked for a $10,000 credit, but this is a good start.
“While this particular credit most benefits volunteer firefighters, there is a ripple effect to the entire fire service,” McMullen said in an interview. “Although it’s not quite where we wanted it to be, we are recognizing this as a positive move in the right direction.”
NDP MP Gord Johns, who has also long advocated for the credit to go to $10,000, agreed that the government’s move was a good start but not enough. Johns said Canada has lost 30,000 volunteer firefighters and search and rescue personnel since 2016.
“We need to do everything we can to try to ensure that we support recruitment,” he said.
Johns also said Canada needs to invest in a national firefighting team, with 400 personnel and a fleet of planes to support provinces.
With the coming fire season looking to be as bad as 2023, if not worse, “the federal government needs to step up their game,” Johns said.
— with files from Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax and Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver.
Drought, heat raise risk of repeat of last summer’s record-breaking wildfires
Drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said.
If Ifs and buts were fruit and nuts..Drought, heat raise risk of repeat of last summer’s record-breaking wildfires
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Mia Rabson
Published Apr 10, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 4 minute read
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires.
OTTAWA — Persistent drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said Wednesday as they warned about the urgent need to address climate change.
“We can expect that the wildfire season will start sooner, end later and potentially be more explosive,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan told a news conference Wednesday.
The 2023 fire season was Canada’s worst on record, with more than 6,600 fires burning more than 15 million hectares, an area almost twice the size of Lake Superior. It forced more than 230,000 people from their homes — including the entire city of Yellowknife — and created unprecedented smoke conditions across much of the country and into the United States.
Eight firefighters died battling the blazes and Canada expects to spend more than $750 million in disaster assistance alone. That does not include the billions of dollars spent fighting the fires in the first place.
A briefing document forecasting the fire risk for this spring shows conditions are already ripe for an early and above-normal fire risk from Quebec all the way to British Columbia in both April and May.
The forecast is based on having had a warmer-than-normal winter with minimal snow and widespread drought, particularly in the Prairies. There is also a high probability for above-normal temperatures in April, May and June. Western Canada, eastern Ontario and western Quebec are currently facing the highest risk.
The briefing includes a caveat that forecasting precipitation levels is not very reliable so the warnings are based on current conditions, and could change if more rain falls this spring than is currently expected.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre lists 65 fires already burning, mainly in B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories. More than half are fires that started in 2023, smouldered underground throughout the winter and have since re-emerged. Most of the fires currently burning are under control.
Human activity is typically the main fire risk factor in the spring, said Michael Norton, the director general of the Northern Forestry Centre at Natural Resources Canada.
Preventing fires from starting in the first place is critical, and in the spring most fires are human-caused, including through careless burning, campfires, fireworks, and the heat from off-road vehicles igniting grass or other debris on the ground.
Lightning becomes a primary source of wildfires during the summer, once thunderstorms become more common.
About 70 per cent of the fires between January and May 2023 were started by humans, compared with fewer than 20 per cent of the fires that started in June, July and August.
The low level of snow in most of Canada is among the key reasons for the higher risks this spring. British Columbia’s snowpack for April is at a record low 67 per cent, said Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the BC River Forecast Centre.
“Typically speaking, drought and wildfire go hand in hand, so it’s not setting up to be a great season,” Boyd said.
“But it still just depends on what the weather conditions are. If we have last year’s spring weather conditions this year, it will be worse.”
Sajjan said Canada and the provinces and territories have been working for months to prepare for a bad fire season this year and will be ready.
That includes more equipment and more trained firefighters, said Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Ottawa now has agreements with 11 of the 13 provinces and territories to deliver $256 million in firefighting equipment, including trucks, drones and planes.
Wilkinson also said the 2022 promise to train 1,000 firefighters over five years may end up producing that many before the end of 2024. Some of that training includes urban firefighters, who need additional training to handle wildfires as they increasingly bear down on cities and towns.
On Wednesday, Sajjan said the government is also responding to the need for more hands on deck by doubling the tax credit for volunteer firefighters from $3,000 to $6,000, largely as a recruitment and retention tool.
Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, said the chiefs had asked for a $10,000 credit, but this is a good start.
“While this particular credit most benefits volunteer firefighters, there is a ripple effect to the entire fire service,” McMullen said in an interview. “Although it’s not quite where we wanted it to be, we are recognizing this as a positive move in the right direction.”
NDP MP Gord Johns, who has also long advocated for the credit to go to $10,000, agreed that the government’s move was a good start but not enough. Johns said Canada has lost 30,000 volunteer firefighters and search and rescue personnel since 2016.
“We need to do everything we can to try to ensure that we support recruitment,” he said.
Johns also said Canada needs to invest in a national firefighting team, with 400 personnel and a fleet of planes to support provinces.
With the coming fire season looking to be as bad as 2023, if not worse, “the federal government needs to step up their game,” Johns said.
— with files from Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax and Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver.
Drought, heat raise risk of repeat of last summer’s record-breaking wildfires
Drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said.
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How much arson will occur ?Drought, heat raise risk of repeat of last summer’s record-breaking wildfires
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Mia Rabson
Published Apr 10, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 4 minute read
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires
Persistent drought and months of above average temperatures have raised the risk of a repeat of last year's record-breaking wildfires.
OTTAWA — Persistent drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said Wednesday as they warned about the urgent need to address climate change.
“We can expect that the wildfire season will start sooner, end later and potentially be more explosive,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan told a news conference Wednesday.
The 2023 fire season was Canada’s worst on record, with more than 6,600 fires burning more than 15 million hectares, an area almost twice the size of Lake Superior. It forced more than 230,000 people from their homes — including the entire city of Yellowknife — and created unprecedented smoke conditions across much of the country and into the United States.
Eight firefighters died battling the blazes and Canada expects to spend more than $750 million in disaster assistance alone. That does not include the billions of dollars spent fighting the fires in the first place.
A briefing document forecasting the fire risk for this spring shows conditions are already ripe for an early and above-normal fire risk from Quebec all the way to British Columbia in both April and May.
The forecast is based on having had a warmer-than-normal winter with minimal snow and widespread drought, particularly in the Prairies. There is also a high probability for above-normal temperatures in April, May and June. Western Canada, eastern Ontario and western Quebec are currently facing the highest risk.
The briefing includes a caveat that forecasting precipitation levels is not very reliable so the warnings are based on current conditions, and could change if more rain falls this spring than is currently expected.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre lists 65 fires already burning, mainly in B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories. More than half are fires that started in 2023, smouldered underground throughout the winter and have since re-emerged. Most of the fires currently burning are under control.
Human activity is typically the main fire risk factor in the spring, said Michael Norton, the director general of the Northern Forestry Centre at Natural Resources Canada.
Preventing fires from starting in the first place is critical, and in the spring most fires are human-caused, including through careless burning, campfires, fireworks, and the heat from off-road vehicles igniting grass or other debris on the ground.
Lightning becomes a primary source of wildfires during the summer, once thunderstorms become more common.
About 70 per cent of the fires between January and May 2023 were started by humans, compared with fewer than 20 per cent of the fires that started in June, July and August.
The low level of snow in most of Canada is among the key reasons for the higher risks this spring. British Columbia’s snowpack for April is at a record low 67 per cent, said Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the BC River Forecast Centre.
“Typically speaking, drought and wildfire go hand in hand, so it’s not setting up to be a great season,” Boyd said.
“But it still just depends on what the weather conditions are. If we have last year’s spring weather conditions this year, it will be worse.”
Sajjan said Canada and the provinces and territories have been working for months to prepare for a bad fire season this year and will be ready.
That includes more equipment and more trained firefighters, said Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Ottawa now has agreements with 11 of the 13 provinces and territories to deliver $256 million in firefighting equipment, including trucks, drones and planes.
Wilkinson also said the 2022 promise to train 1,000 firefighters over five years may end up producing that many before the end of 2024. Some of that training includes urban firefighters, who need additional training to handle wildfires as they increasingly bear down on cities and towns.
On Wednesday, Sajjan said the government is also responding to the need for more hands on deck by doubling the tax credit for volunteer firefighters from $3,000 to $6,000, largely as a recruitment and retention tool.
Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, said the chiefs had asked for a $10,000 credit, but this is a good start.
“While this particular credit most benefits volunteer firefighters, there is a ripple effect to the entire fire service,” McMullen said in an interview. “Although it’s not quite where we wanted it to be, we are recognizing this as a positive move in the right direction.”
NDP MP Gord Johns, who has also long advocated for the credit to go to $10,000, agreed that the government’s move was a good start but not enough. Johns said Canada has lost 30,000 volunteer firefighters and search and rescue personnel since 2016.
“We need to do everything we can to try to ensure that we support recruitment,” he said.
Johns also said Canada needs to invest in a national firefighting team, with 400 personnel and a fleet of planes to support provinces.
With the coming fire season looking to be as bad as 2023, if not worse, “the federal government needs to step up their game,” Johns said.
— with files from Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax and Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver.
Drought, heat raise risk of repeat of last summer’s record-breaking wildfires
Drought and months of above-average temperatures have escalated the risk of another record-breaking wildfire season, federal ministers said.
That is not what stopped the fire. They finally decided to get some water on it. It also burned fromt he top of the bluffs right down to the lake, because they didn't have enough planes or choppers to contain it.
I haven’t been to Uke in a while , did the lake shore houses burn or were they saved ?
Unsubstantiated claims about the impact of human-induced climate change on weather are prompting governments — including Canada’s — to impose excessive regulations and costly new programs on businesses and taxpayers, according to a new report by the Fraser Institute.
“Based on such assertions, governments are enacting ever more restrictive regulations on Canadian consumers of energy products, and especially Canada’s energy sector,” the paper by the fiscally conservative think tank says.
“These regulations impose significant costs on the Canadian economy, and can exert downward pressure on Canadians’ standard of living.”
Study author Kenneth Green argues, “the evidence is clear — many of the claims that extreme weather events are increasing are simply not empirically true. Before governments impose new regulations or enact new programs, they need to study the actual data and base their actions on facts, not unsubstantiated claims.
“Earth Day (April 22) has become a time when extraordinary claims are made about extreme weather events, but before policymakers act on those extreme claims — often with harmful regulations — it’s important to study the actual evidence,” said Kenneth Green, author of Extreme Weather and Climate Change.
Green acknowledges that evidence compiled by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “does suggest that some types of extreme weather have become more extreme, particularly those relating to temperature trends.”
However, “many types of extreme weather show no signs of increasing and in some cases are decreasing” Green said.
“Drought has shown no clear increasing trend, nor has flooding. Hurricane intensity and number show no increasing trend. Globally, wildfires have shown no clear trend in increasing number or intensity, while in Canada, wildfires have actually been decreasing in number and areas consumed from the 1950s to the present.”
Green’s arguments fly in the face of the majority of climate scientists, along with the views of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
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It describes human-induced climate change as a full-blown “climate crisis” where Canadians “are already seeing the impacts … across the globe, with more severe and more frequent wildfires, floods and droughts in many parts of the world” affecting “our economy, our infrastructure, our health and overall well-being.”
Indeed, arguments such as those made by Green in the Fraser Institute paper inevitably attract allegations of “climate denialism” by the Trudeau government, which describes itself as being on the front lines of fighting climate change.
But the reality is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is engaging in its own form of denialism.
This happens when it implies that Trudeau’s national carbon tax — or for that matter any of the more than 100 programs to address climate change on which the federal government is spending more than $200 billion of taxpayers’ money — will lead to less severe weather in Canada.
That claim is nonsense because Canada’s emissions. at 1.6% of the global total, are insufficient to materially impact climate change, as independent, non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux, has reported.
In fact, Canada could reduce its emissions to net zero by tomorrow and it would have no impact on climate change, or the weather in Canada, or anywhere else.
Climate change is a global issue driven by global emissions.
Trudeau’s climate plan gives his government the moral authority to urge major emitters such as China and India to reduce their emissions.
But anyone who believes there will be fewer wildfires, droughts and floods in Canada because of Trudeau’s carbon tax, is dreaming in technicolour.
Any politician who makes such a claim is talking nonsense.
“Based on such assertions, governments are enacting ever more restrictive regulations on Canadian consumers of energy products, and especially Canada’s energy sector,” the paper by the fiscally conservative think tank says.
“These regulations impose significant costs on the Canadian economy, and can exert downward pressure on Canadians’ standard of living.”
Study author Kenneth Green argues, “the evidence is clear — many of the claims that extreme weather events are increasing are simply not empirically true. Before governments impose new regulations or enact new programs, they need to study the actual data and base their actions on facts, not unsubstantiated claims.
“Earth Day (April 22) has become a time when extraordinary claims are made about extreme weather events, but before policymakers act on those extreme claims — often with harmful regulations — it’s important to study the actual evidence,” said Kenneth Green, author of Extreme Weather and Climate Change.
Green acknowledges that evidence compiled by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “does suggest that some types of extreme weather have become more extreme, particularly those relating to temperature trends.”
However, “many types of extreme weather show no signs of increasing and in some cases are decreasing” Green said.
“Drought has shown no clear increasing trend, nor has flooding. Hurricane intensity and number show no increasing trend. Globally, wildfires have shown no clear trend in increasing number or intensity, while in Canada, wildfires have actually been decreasing in number and areas consumed from the 1950s to the present.”
Green’s arguments fly in the face of the majority of climate scientists, along with the views of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
GOLDSTEIN: Exaggerated claims about climate change costing us money, report says — Toronto Sun
Unsubstantiated claims about the impact of human-induced climate change on weather are prompting governments — including Canada’s — to impose excessive regulations and costly new programs on businesses and taxpayers, according to a new report by the Fraser Institute. “Based on such assertions...
Indeed, arguments such as those made by Green in the Fraser Institute paper inevitably attract allegations of “climate denialism” by the Trudeau government, which describes itself as being on the front lines of fighting climate change.
But the reality is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is engaging in its own form of denialism.
This happens when it implies that Trudeau’s national carbon tax — or for that matter any of the more than 100 programs to address climate change on which the federal government is spending more than $200 billion of taxpayers’ money — will lead to less severe weather in Canada.
That claim is nonsense because Canada’s emissions. at 1.6% of the global total, are insufficient to materially impact climate change, as independent, non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux, has reported.
In fact, Canada could reduce its emissions to net zero by tomorrow and it would have no impact on climate change, or the weather in Canada, or anywhere else.
Climate change is a global issue driven by global emissions.
Trudeau’s climate plan gives his government the moral authority to urge major emitters such as China and India to reduce their emissions.
But anyone who believes there will be fewer wildfires, droughts and floods in Canada because of Trudeau’s carbon tax, is dreaming in technicolour.
Any politician who makes such a claim is talking nonsense.