Canada: Alberta wildfires force nearly 30,000 residents to flee

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
113,070
12,723
113
Low Earth Orbit
Interesting.....not climate change? Liars!

Canada’s Ability to Prevent Forest Fires Lags Behind the Need​

Provincial firefighting agencies are stretched thin, there is no national agency and it’s hard to get approval for controlled burns — factors that have exacerbated recent outbreaks.

Canada’s capacity to prevent wildfires has been shrinking for decades because of budget cuts, a loss of some of the country’s forest service staff, and onerous rules for fire prevention, turning some of its forests into a tinderbox.

As residents braced for what could be the worst wildfire season on record, and one that is far from over, the air slowly cleared over the Northeastern United States on Friday, but hundreds of wildfires continued to burn across Canada.

Thanks to some rain and cloud cover near wildfire areas, with scattered rains expected in parts of southern Ontario on Sunday, Steven Flisfeder, a warning preparedness meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, predicted that the weekend could bring better air quality in Toronto, the country’s largest city.
“That’s going to help flush out the contaminants from the air a little bit,” he said.

More than 1,100 firefighters from around the world have been dispatched across Canada to help combat the country’s raging fire season, officials said, including groups from France, Chile, Costa Rica, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Wildfire emergency response management is handled by each of the 10 provinces and three territories in Canada, but hundreds of blazes across the country have stretched local resources thin, and renewed calls for a national firefighting service.

More https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/...revent wildfires,its forests into a tinderbox.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
26,028
9,489
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
Justin Trudeau’s Environment Minister, Steven Guibeault, made a surprise appearance at the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2023 convention on Friday and criticized the Conservatives for their apparent lack of a climate plan.

According to the Trudeau government, Canada’s unprecedented wildfire season is a result of climate change.
But the Trudeau Liberals have been in power since 2015 and have implemented heavy-handed carbon taxes as a main plank of their climate plan.

Why haven’t the Trudeau government’s carbon taxes prevented wildfires in Canada?
There was no social media post on X from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about this below little piece of news:
Same goes from Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault or former Environment Minister Catherine McKenna.
But police in Quebec have charged a man with arson for several allegedly deliberately set fires in northern Quebec in what was a major criminal investigation that could be the stuff of movies.

It’s an inconvenient truth that is not getting as much attention as plumes of smoke that filled the air and skylines of major cities like New York, Montreal and Toronto in June.
“We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change,” Trudeau posted on June 7. “These fires are affecting everyday routines, lives and livelihoods, and our air quality. We’ll keep working – here at home and with partners around the world – to tackle climate change and address its impacts.”

But now Quebec police have charged a 37-year-old man with arson in connection with what the CBC reports as “numerous forest fires that burned earlier this summer in the province’s north.”
1694302389531.jpeg
Brian Paré, of Chibougamau, 700 km north of Montreal, was booked in court Thursday and will be held until a bail hearing scheduled for Monday. It will be interesting to see if he has the same kind of difficultly gaining bail as Tamara Lich did for her alleged mischief connected to the Ottawa Freedom Convoy.

The arson charge in northern Quebec is not the sole criminal indictment related to this summer. Police in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia and Northwest Territories have suspects before the courts charged with allegedly deliberately starting fires. While some of those cases are dismissed as being within the city limits and not related, some have been in or near forests and green spaces.

The same philosophy that these arsons could not have started forest fires is not applied that somehow climate change has started them. None of this seems to matter to those who want to bring in strict climate change measures that cost and affect average people but still fly around the world on jets themselves.

While few argue weather, temperature, ground conditions or lightning strikes can play a role in forest fires, so can arson, accidental spread of campfires or sparks from a train — something rarely mentioned by carbon tax proponents like McKenna, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

(“Rise in extreme wildfires linked directly to emissions from oil companies in new study,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported.)

Arson is always a feature of any particularly aggressive wildfire season, and Canadian enviro-extremists have certainly never shied away from large-scale property damage. But the balance of the evidence suggests that most of these fires are likely being sparked by their usual cause: Lightning.

Alternative theories as to the source of the 2023 fires have largely cropped up in response to progressive politicians fingering them as irrefutable evidence of the impacts of climate change — and a clarion call for stronger emissions policies.

“We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change … We’ll keep working — here at home and with partners around the world — to tackle climate change and address its impacts,” reads one recent statement by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault rather explicitly used the wildfires as justification for higher carbon taxes, arguing that they’re still far lower than the “social cost of carbon.”

But there is a way to critique this line of reasoning without relying on tenuous evidence of a vast enviro-conspiracy to light Canada on fire for political gain.

Even wildfire specialists have been noting that while hotter, drier summers can supercharge a bad fire season, the immense scale of the 2023 fires is due in part to Canada and the United States dropping the ball on proper forestry management.
“Until we overhaul forest management, wildfires and smoky skies will become the norm,”
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
113,070
12,723
113
Low Earth Orbit
Justin Trudeau’s Environment Minister, Steven Guibeault, made a surprise appearance at the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2023 convention on Friday and criticized the Conservatives for their apparent lack of a climate plan.

According to the Trudeau government, Canada’s unprecedented wildfire season is a result of climate change.
But the Trudeau Liberals have been in power since 2015 and have implemented heavy-handed carbon taxes as a main plank of their climate plan.

Why haven’t the Trudeau government’s carbon taxes prevented wildfires in Canada?
There was no social media post on X from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about this below little piece of news:
Same goes from Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault or former Environment Minister Catherine McKenna.
But police in Quebec have charged a man with arson for several allegedly deliberately set fires in northern Quebec in what was a major criminal investigation that could be the stuff of movies.

It’s an inconvenient truth that is not getting as much attention as plumes of smoke that filled the air and skylines of major cities like New York, Montreal and Toronto in June.
“We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change,” Trudeau posted on June 7. “These fires are affecting everyday routines, lives and livelihoods, and our air quality. We’ll keep working – here at home and with partners around the world – to tackle climate change and address its impacts.”

But now Quebec police have charged a 37-year-old man with arson in connection with what the CBC reports as “numerous forest fires that burned earlier this summer in the province’s north.”
View attachment 19252
Brian Paré, of Chibougamau, 700 km north of Montreal, was booked in court Thursday and will be held until a bail hearing scheduled for Monday. It will be interesting to see if he has the same kind of difficultly gaining bail as Tamara Lich did for her alleged mischief connected to the Ottawa Freedom Convoy.

The arson charge in northern Quebec is not the sole criminal indictment related to this summer. Police in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia and Northwest Territories have suspects before the courts charged with allegedly deliberately starting fires. While some of those cases are dismissed as being within the city limits and not related, some have been in or near forests and green spaces.

The same philosophy that these arsons could not have started forest fires is not applied that somehow climate change has started them. None of this seems to matter to those who want to bring in strict climate change measures that cost and affect average people but still fly around the world on jets themselves.

While few argue weather, temperature, ground conditions or lightning strikes can play a role in forest fires, so can arson, accidental spread of campfires or sparks from a train — something rarely mentioned by carbon tax proponents like McKenna, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

(“Rise in extreme wildfires linked directly to emissions from oil companies in new study,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported.)

Arson is always a feature of any particularly aggressive wildfire season, and Canadian enviro-extremists have certainly never shied away from large-scale property damage. But the balance of the evidence suggests that most of these fires are likely being sparked by their usual cause: Lightning.

Alternative theories as to the source of the 2023 fires have largely cropped up in response to progressive politicians fingering them as irrefutable evidence of the impacts of climate change — and a clarion call for stronger emissions policies.

“We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change … We’ll keep working — here at home and with partners around the world — to tackle climate change and address its impacts,” reads one recent statement by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault rather explicitly used the wildfires as justification for higher carbon taxes, arguing that they’re still far lower than the “social cost of carbon.”

But there is a way to critique this line of reasoning without relying on tenuous evidence of a vast enviro-conspiracy to light Canada on fire for political gain.

Even wildfire specialists have been noting that while hotter, drier summers can supercharge a bad fire season, the immense scale of the 2023 fires is due in part to Canada and the United States dropping the ball on proper forestry management.
“Until we overhaul forest management, wildfires and smoky skies will become the norm,”
He must be looking for a job in a new carbon temple.
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
37,525
3,279
113
4 young B.C. firefighters heading home die in head-on crash on highway: RCMP
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Brenna Owen
Published Sep 20, 2023 • 2 minute read
Four firefighters travelling home after battling British Columbia's wildfires have died in a road crash. Premier David Eby and Forests Minister Bruce Ralston say in a joint statement the firefighters died in a motor vehicle accident near Cache Creek, B.C. Ralston, speaks in Vancouver, on Wednesday Jan. 22, 2020.
Four firefighters travelling home after battling British Columbia's wildfires have died in a road crash. Premier David Eby and Forests Minister Bruce Ralston say in a joint statement the firefighters died in a motor vehicle accident near Cache Creek, B.C. Ralston, speaks in Vancouver, on Wednesday Jan. 22, 2020.
Four young men travelling home after helping in the battle against wildfires in central British Columbia are dead after a fiery head-on crash, police and provincial officials said Wednesday.


RCMP Cpl. James Grandy said emergency crews responded around 2 a.m. Tuesday to the crash on Highway 1 east of Cache Creek in the province’s southern Interior.


A B.C. government statement said the men were heading home after aiding wildfire response efforts in the Vanderhoof area, west of Prince George.

Grandy said the initial investigation suggests a Ford F-350 pick-up truck the young men were travelling in failed to navigate a bend in the highway and slammed head-on into a semi-truck travelling in the opposite direction.

The semi-truck caught fire, but the driver was able to escape before the vehicle was “engulfed,” the Mounties said in a statement.

All four men inside the pick-up truck, who Grandy said were from communities across B.C., died at the scene. They have been identified as subcontractors for the BC Wildfire Service, police said.


Premier David Eby and Forests Minister Bruce Ralston issued a joint statement saying their hearts are broken by the news of the deaths of the workers.

“This is devastating news in what has been an immensely difficult wildfire season. We stand with wildfire fighters and all BC Wildfire Service personnel as they mourn the death of colleagues and co-workers yet again.”

Speaking to media at the Union of BC Municipalities conference in Vancouver, Ralston said the deaths are more tragic news in a very tough wildfire season.

“It’s emotionally wrenching and heartbreaking to hear of people who have completed their work, on their way home, and meet with their deaths on the road.”

Asked about the role of the subcontractors in firefighting efforts, Ralston said such details are “still emerging.”


The deaths bring to six the number of wildfire personnel who have died this season in the province.

In late July, 25-year-old Zak Muise died in a vehicle accident while fighting a massive fire in northern B.C.

Two weeks before that, 19-year-old Devyn Gale was killed by a falling tree near her hometown of Revelstoke.

Grandy said a stretch of Highway 1 had reopened after closing for the initial investigation that involves the BC Coroners Service and an RCMP collision reconstructionist.

Despite the early indications, he said the exact cause of the crash will have to wait until the results of the completed investigation.

Grandy said he’s not entirely familiar with the specific location on the highway, but he understands the route is winding in the area.
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
37,525
3,279
113
Maui County police find additional remains, raising Lahaina wildfire death toll to 99
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Published Oct 21, 2023 • 1 minute read
The death toll for the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has increased by one, to 99, after Maui County police found additional remains. The remains were recovered on Oct. 12 in Lahaina, police spokesperson Alana Pico said in an email Friday, Oct. 20, 2023.
The death toll for the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has increased by one, to 99, after Maui County police found additional remains. The remains were recovered on Oct. 12 in Lahaina, police spokesperson Alana Pico said in an email Friday, Oct. 20, 2023.
LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — The death toll for the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has increased by one, to 99, after Maui County police found additional remains.


The remains were recovered on Oct. 12 in Lahaina, police spokesperson Alana Pico said in an email Friday. An autopsy and forensic examination verified that they were not from a previously recovered individual.


So far police have identified the remains of 97 people from the Aug. 8 fire that wiped out much of Lahaina, a historic town on Maui’s west coast. The remains of two people have yet to be identified. Six people are still missing.

The wildfire started in a grassy area in Lahaina’s hills. Powerful winds related to a hurricane passing to Hawaii’s south carried embers from house to house and hampered firefighting efforts. More than 2,000 buildings were destroyed, and some 8,000 people were forced to move to hotels and other temporary shelter.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: Taxslave2

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
37,525
3,279
113
Southern California utility responsible for deadly 2022 fire: State officials
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Vanessa Montalbano and Brianna Sacks, The Washington Post
Published Nov 16, 2023 • 3 minute read

One of California’s largest utilities is responsible for a blaze that killed two people attempting to flee a fast-moving 2022 fire near Hemet, southeast of Los Angeles, according to a report from the state’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection obtained by The Washington Post.


Southern California Edison has previously denied any allegations of its involvement in the Fairview Fire, which ignited Sept. 5, 2022, and burned more than 28,000 acres and destroyed dozens of structures while displacing tens of thousands of residents.


The report, which has not yet been made public, determined that because of a sag in one of SCE’s electrical lines near Fairview Avenue in Hemet, the wire came into contact with a communication line below it and caused a flurry of sparks, igniting flammable vegetation nearby.

The California Public Utilities Commission encourages utilities to temporarily shut down power to specific areas at risk of a wildfire, known as a public safety power shutoff. But despite the presence of strong winds and extreme heat conditions ripe for an inferno, the Cal Fire report said, SCE’s power lines remained energized that day.


“It was determined the SCE energized overhead electrical line contacted a Frontier communication line that was suspended underneath the electrical lines,” the report states. “This caused a shower of sparks, which caused the fire.”

David Eisenhauer, a spokesperson for SCE, said Wednesday that the company “cooperated with Cal Fire during its review of the fire, and we’re examining their latest report.”

“Our hearts are with the community and the people who suffered losses in the Fairview Fire,” he said.

Southern California Edison, a subsidiary of Edison International, provides electricity to roughly 15 million people across a territory of about 50,000 square miles.

It is seen as more proactive than California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, in taking steps to minimize fire ignitions from its equipment. Still, it faces billions of dollars in liabilities for past fires, including the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which destroyed more than 1,600 structures, killed three people and prompted the evacuation of nearly 300,000.


The state report about the Fairview Fire come as the victims’ families and the city of Hemet are engaged in a lawsuit against SCE, alleging it failed to properly manage its electrical infrastructure and maintain nearby landscaping to ensure wildfire mitigation, putting residents at an increased risk.

“From the beginning of this case, we alleged that the Fairview Fire was caused by an electrical arcing event due to line-slap involving Edison’s powerlines. We’re glad that CAL FIRE has confirmed this as the official cause,” said Alexander Robertson IV, an attorney from Robertson & Associates representing Fairview Fire victims.

In recent years across much of the West, fires in what is known as the wildland-urban interface have become more and more common, in part because of climate change and people moving into remote areas, but also because of utility negligence. Like the 2022 Fairview Fire, August’s deadly fire in Lahaina, Hawaii, and the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado were sparked by power lines and proved to be catastrophic when they raced through overgrown grasses into heavily populated neighborhoods.


Meanwhile, California regulators on Thursday are expected to vote on whether to approve a proposal from PG&E that would raise customer costs by anywhere from 10 to 25 percent over four years to help pay for wildfire safety and prevention. PG&E was found liable for the 2018 Camp Fire that leveled the town of Paradise and killed at least 85 people, as well as the 2021 Dixie Fire, which scorched nearly 1 million acres.

For its part, SCE is proposing a consumer energy bill increase of about $17 in 2025, and about $5 each year thereafter through 2028. Since 2018, the utility says, it has taken steps to reduce the risk of wildfires associated with its equipment by about 80 percent, including by completing more inspections each year, installing additional weather stations to monitor fire conditions, and increasing efforts to trim or remove trees.

The civil case against SCE over the Fairview Fire is set to go to trial in September.
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
37,525
3,279
113
Wildfire grows into one of largest in Texas history as flames menace multiple small towns
About 40 homes were burned around the perimeter of the town of Canadian

Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Sean Murphy and Jim Vertuno
Published Feb 28, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 5 minute read

CANADIAN, Texas — A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches.


An 83-year-old grandmother from the tiny town of Stinnett was the lone confirmed fatality. However, authorities have yet to make a thorough search for victims and have warned the damage to some communities is extensive.


Known as the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest blaze expanded to more than 3,370 square kilometres and jumped into parts of neighbouring Oklahoma. It is now larger than the state of Rhode Island, and the Texas A&M Forest Service said the flames were only about 3% contained.

“I believe the fire will grow before it gets fully contained,” said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

The largest fire recorded in state history was the 2006 East Amarillo Complex fire, which burned about 1,400 square miles and resulted in 13 deaths.


Walls of flames were pushed by powerful winds while huge plumes of smoke billowed hundreds of feet in the air across the sparsely populated region. The smoke delayed aerial surveillance of the damage in some areas.

“There was one point where we couldn’t see anything,” said Greg Downey, 57, describing his escape as flames bore down on his neighbourhood. “I didn’t think we’d get out of it.”

The woman who died was identified by family members as Joyce Blankenship, a former substitute teacher. Her grandson, Lee Quesada, said he had posted in a community forum wondering if anyone could try and locate her. Quesada said deputies told his uncle on Wednesday that they had found Blankenship’s remains in her burned home.

Quesada said she’d surprise him at times with funny little stories “about her more ornery days.”


“Just talking to her was a joy,” he said, adding that “Joy” was a nickname of hers.

Hemphill County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Kendall described the charred terrain as being “like a moonscape. … It’s just all gone.”

Kendall said about 40 homes were burned around the perimeter of the town of Canadian, but no buildings were lost inside the community. Kendall also said he saw “hundreds of cattle just dead, laying in the fields.”

Tresea Rankin videotaped her own home in Canadian as it burned.

“Thirty-eight years of memories, that’s what you were thinking,” Rankin said of watching the flames destroy her house. “Two of my kids were married there … But you know, it’s OK, the memories won’t go away.”

The small town of Fritch, north of Amarillo, lost hundreds of homes in a 2014 fire and appeared to be hit hard again. Mayor Tom Ray said Wednesday that an estimated 40-50 homes were destroyed on the southern edge. Ray said natural gas remained shut off for the town of 2,200.


Residents are probably not “prepared for what they’re going to see if they pull into town,” Hutchinson County Emergency Management spokesperson Deidra Thomas said in a social media livestream. She compared the damage to a tornado.

Authorities have not said what ignited the fires, but strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes. Near Borger, a community of about 13,000 people, emergency officials at one point late Tuesday answered questions from panicked residents on Facebook and told them to get ready to leave if they had not already.

“It was like a ring of fire around Borger. There was no way out … all four main roads were closed,” said Adrianna Hill whose home was within about a mile of the fire. She said a wind that blew the fire in the opposite direction “saved our butts.”


Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties. The encroaching flames caused the main facility that disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal to pause operations Tuesday night, but it was open for normal work Wednesday.

The weather forecast provided some hope for firefighters — cooler temperatures, less wind and possibly rain on Thursday. However, the situation was dire in some areas Wednesday.

Sustained winds of up to 72 km/h, with gusts of up to 113 km/h, caused the fires that were spreading east to turn south, threatening new areas, forecasters said. But winds calmed down after a cold front came through Tuesday evening, said Peter Vanden Bosch, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Amarillo.


Breezy conditions were expected again Friday, and fire-friendly weather could return by the weekend, Vanden Bosch said Wednesday.

Kidd said the weekend forecast and “sheer size and scope” of the blaze are the biggest challenges for firefighters.

“I don’t want the community there to feel a false sense of security that all these fires will not grow anymore,” Kidd said. “This is still a very dynamic situation.”

As evacuation orders mounted Tuesday, county and city officials implored residents to turn on emergency alert services on their cellphones and be ready to leave immediately.

“We got a great response from the community when they were asked to evacuate. They did,” Kidd said. “We believe that saved lives, and we don’t want people going back if the evacuation orders are still in place.”


The Pantex nuclear weapon plant, northeast of Amarillo, evacuated nonessential staff Tuesday night out of an “abundance of caution,” said Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s production office at Pantex. Firefighters remained in case of an emergency.

Pantex tweeted early Wednesday that the facility was “open for normal day shift operations.”

The Smokehouse Creek Fire spread from Texas into neighbouring Roger Mills County in western Oklahoma, where officials encouraged people in the Durham area to flee. Officials did not know yet how large the fire was in Oklahoma.

The weather service also issued red-flag warnings and fire-danger alerts for several other states through the midsection of the country.

— Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press reporters Ken Miller in Oklahoma City, Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
37,525
3,279
113
Wildfire grows into one of largest in Texas history as flames menace multiple small towns
About 40 homes were burned around the perimeter of the town of Canadian

Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Sean Murphy and Jim Vertuno
Published Feb 28, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 5 minute read

CANADIAN, Texas — A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches.


An 83-year-old grandmother from the tiny town of Stinnett was the lone confirmed fatality. However, authorities have yet to make a thorough search for victims and have warned the damage to some communities is extensive.


Known as the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest blaze expanded to more than 3,370 square kilometres and jumped into parts of neighbouring Oklahoma. It is now larger than the state of Rhode Island, and the Texas A&M Forest Service said the flames were only about 3% contained.

“I believe the fire will grow before it gets fully contained,” said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

The largest fire recorded in state history was the 2006 East Amarillo Complex fire, which burned about 1,400 square miles and resulted in 13 deaths.


Walls of flames were pushed by powerful winds while huge plumes of smoke billowed hundreds of feet in the air across the sparsely populated region. The smoke delayed aerial surveillance of the damage in some areas.

“There was one point where we couldn’t see anything,” said Greg Downey, 57, describing his escape as flames bore down on his neighbourhood. “I didn’t think we’d get out of it.”

The woman who died was identified by family members as Joyce Blankenship, a former substitute teacher. Her grandson, Lee Quesada, said he had posted in a community forum wondering if anyone could try and locate her. Quesada said deputies told his uncle on Wednesday that they had found Blankenship’s remains in her burned home.

Quesada said she’d surprise him at times with funny little stories “about her more ornery days.”


“Just talking to her was a joy,” he said, adding that “Joy” was a nickname of hers.

Hemphill County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Kendall described the charred terrain as being “like a moonscape. … It’s just all gone.”

Kendall said about 40 homes were burned around the perimeter of the town of Canadian, but no buildings were lost inside the community. Kendall also said he saw “hundreds of cattle just dead, laying in the fields.”

Tresea Rankin videotaped her own home in Canadian as it burned.

“Thirty-eight years of memories, that’s what you were thinking,” Rankin said of watching the flames destroy her house. “Two of my kids were married there … But you know, it’s OK, the memories won’t go away.”

The small town of Fritch, north of Amarillo, lost hundreds of homes in a 2014 fire and appeared to be hit hard again. Mayor Tom Ray said Wednesday that an estimated 40-50 homes were destroyed on the southern edge. Ray said natural gas remained shut off for the town of 2,200.


Residents are probably not “prepared for what they’re going to see if they pull into town,” Hutchinson County Emergency Management spokesperson Deidra Thomas said in a social media livestream. She compared the damage to a tornado.

Authorities have not said what ignited the fires, but strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes. Near Borger, a community of about 13,000 people, emergency officials at one point late Tuesday answered questions from panicked residents on Facebook and told them to get ready to leave if they had not already.

“It was like a ring of fire around Borger. There was no way out … all four main roads were closed,” said Adrianna Hill whose home was within about a mile of the fire. She said a wind that blew the fire in the opposite direction “saved our butts.”


Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties. The encroaching flames caused the main facility that disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal to pause operations Tuesday night, but it was open for normal work Wednesday.

The weather forecast provided some hope for firefighters — cooler temperatures, less wind and possibly rain on Thursday. However, the situation was dire in some areas Wednesday.

Sustained winds of up to 72 km/h, with gusts of up to 113 km/h, caused the fires that were spreading east to turn south, threatening new areas, forecasters said. But winds calmed down after a cold front came through Tuesday evening, said Peter Vanden Bosch, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Amarillo.


Breezy conditions were expected again Friday, and fire-friendly weather could return by the weekend, Vanden Bosch said Wednesday.

Kidd said the weekend forecast and “sheer size and scope” of the blaze are the biggest challenges for firefighters.

“I don’t want the community there to feel a false sense of security that all these fires will not grow anymore,” Kidd said. “This is still a very dynamic situation.”

As evacuation orders mounted Tuesday, county and city officials implored residents to turn on emergency alert services on their cellphones and be ready to leave immediately.

“We got a great response from the community when they were asked to evacuate. They did,” Kidd said. “We believe that saved lives, and we don’t want people going back if the evacuation orders are still in place.”


The Pantex nuclear weapon plant, northeast of Amarillo, evacuated nonessential staff Tuesday night out of an “abundance of caution,” said Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s production office at Pantex. Firefighters remained in case of an emergency.

Pantex tweeted early Wednesday that the facility was “open for normal day shift operations.”

The Smokehouse Creek Fire spread from Texas into neighbouring Roger Mills County in western Oklahoma, where officials encouraged people in the Durham area to flee. Officials did not know yet how large the fire was in Oklahoma.

The weather service also issued red-flag warnings and fire-danger alerts for several other states through the midsection of the country.

— Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press reporters Ken Miller in Oklahoma City, Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
there is a town called canadian? who knew? 🍁 🇨🇦 :cool: ;)
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
37,525
3,279
113
Inaccurate data on forest fuels may stoke B.C. wildfires, study finds
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Brenna Owen
Published Mar 03, 2024 • 4 minute read

VANCOUVER — Wildfire fighting and forest management decisions are potentially being hampered by inaccurate government data that misrepresents forest fuel loads in British Columbia’s Interior, a new study has found.


The B.C. government says the provincial wildfire service is working with the study’s lead author and others to close the data gap, which involves “mismatches” between remotely-sensed mapping, forest fuel classifications, and observations on the ground.


“These mismatches make it difficult for fire managers to accurately determine expected fire behaviour before an event occurs,” the researchers say in the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Fire Ecology last month.

The mismatches may also result in failure to identify at-risk areas that would benefit from work to mitigate the fuel buildup, the paper says.

Understanding the mix of flame-stoking grasses, branches and dead trees in the forest is crucial to managing risk, because those fuels are the only factor that people can change in the short term to influence fire behaviour, it says.


The researchers from the University of B.C. and Canadian Forest Service acknowledge that mapping forest fuels is “notoriously challenging” despite its importance in influencing and predicting wildfire behaviour.

Lead author Jen Baron says fixing the data will help officials identify and respond to fire-prone areas, though will likely require a “huge lift.”

“The challenge is that we’re trying to use these fuel-type maps to decide where to put fuel treatments,” she says, referring to measures such as prescribed burning, thinning dense forests, or burning piles of “slash” following logging.

Improving fuel-type mapping willalso help researchers and wildfire officials understand how fuels interact with today’s environmental conditions, and with each other, to influence fire behaviour, Baron says.


“What we really need to be able to do is link the fuel conditions, the fire behaviour_ things like the rate of spread, the intensity, the flame length — and the weather, so we can understand how they all work together under different scenarios.”

The paper found “poor correspondence” between field observations and government data, specifically B.C.’s vegetation resource index and the national fire behaviour prediction system.

The researchers identified 76 plots in an area known as the Rocky Mountain Trench separating the Columbia and Rocky Mountain ranges in southeastern B.C.

They found “no suitable match” between national system’s data and field observations in 58 per cent of the one-hectare plots. A further 42 per cent were “partially suitable,” the paper says.


The national and provincial forest inventory data are largely derived from aerial imaging, and Baron says it was “significantly underestimating” the density of underbrush that serves as a conduit for flames travelling up to the forest canopy.

B.C.’s vegetation resource index was designed to estimate “merchantable timber,” meaning trees to supply the forest industry, says Baron, a sessional lecturer at the department of forest and conservation sciences at the University of British Columbia.

“There’s a lot more fuel on the land base than what’s merchantable.”

The study also revealed problems with Canada’s fire behaviour prediction system when it comes to classifying fuel types in B.C.’s Interior, Baron says.


The existing system uses data from a series of experimental burns 60 years ago, when fire weather and fuel beds were “very different than they are today,” she says.

It was also designed primarily to inform fire suppression in boreal forests and uses 16 fuel types to represent conditions throughout Canada, Baron says.

“There just really aren’t enough fuel types to represent the diversity of conditions that we have in Interior B.C.”

One example of a mismatch could be an area with a fuel type listed as mature lodgepole pine forest, but if it had been logged, leaving a buildup of “slash,” Baron says the system may not capture the real fuel load and potential risk.

The provincial wildfire service uses the existing fuel-type mapping,but officials are aware of its limitations and use their own expertise and observations to make decisions about fire suppression and fuel mitigation efforts, she adds.


In an emailed statement, the Forests Ministry says the BC Wildfire Service is working with Baron and other researchers to improve fuel classification.

This spring, Baron will look at how fire behaviour specialists are using the existing data in combination with local knowledge to “calibrate their predictions,” it says.

The B.C. government is also working to improve its forest inventory data by acquiring LiDAR mapping for the whole province. Short for “light detection and ranging,” the aerial mapping process using laser-based technology.

Still, Baron says researchers will also need data from the field, in finer detail than LiDAR can offer, as well as data on fire behaviour under different conditions.

The ministry statement says the BC Wildfire Service has “expanded the research element” of prescribed burning, and fire behaviour observers will accompany front line teams to collect data from active blazes.

At the national level, Baron says work is starting on the “next generation” of Canada’s fire behaviour prediction system, though it will take some time.

Canada’s 2023 fire season was the most destructive ever recorded. It burned more than 180,000 square kilometres by the end of September, including more than 28,000 square kilometres of land in B.C., where hundreds of homes were destroyed in the Okanagan and Shuswap regions.
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
37,525
3,279
113
Why so many wildfires in Canada are burning overnight
Author of the article:Cindy Tran
Published Mar 25, 2024 • Last updated 13 hours ago • 3 minute read

A difficult end to the 2023 wildfire season is leading way to a challenging 2024 wildfire season and experts are seeing even more overnight fire events than ever.


Researchers at Natural Resources Canada are looking at daytime drought indicators more often to help predict whether an overnight fire event will occur, said a research scientist with the Northern Forest Centre in Edmonton. According to a new study by wildfire researchers, drought is the main contributor to overnight fires that are becoming larger and more frequent.


Postmedia spoke to Xianli Wang, a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada in Edmonton and one of the authors of the North America-wide study. He said their research can help fire management control overnight fires that are farther away from resources and help bridge the accessibility gap.

Here’s a breakdown of what causes overnight fires, the research and predictors.


Warmer temperatures and lack of rain reprieve the source of overnight fires
Wang said typically, active fires that burn during the day were quiet during the night when the temperature is lower and humidity is higher, which provides a break for firefighters. Fires were also not expected to progress and required less monitoring at night.

A predicted early 2024 wildfire season is bringing with it challenges from last year, which was heavily rooted in drought and little snowpack. However, in recent years overnight fires have become more frequent.

From 2017 to 2020 at least 99 per cent of overnight burning events were associated with large fires, classified as more than 1,000 hectares. Wang said at least one overnight fire was identified in 20 per cent of these large fires, indicating that more overnight burnings are correlated with a high number of burned areas.


“We found drought was the strongest influence to the occurrence of nighttime burning. We also found that the fires with overnight burning, about one-third start burning the day that fire ignited. So eventually they became big fires and about half start burning overnight within two days,” Wang said.

“It is quite often you see overnight burning at the beginning of the fire. So that will leave little time for our firefighting interventions.”

Lightning-caused fires causes additional challenges
In 2023 there were 2.2 million hectares burned with 80 per cent of the area burned was caused by lightning while the other 20 per cent were human-caused fires — often accidental, Wang said.

Lightning-caused fires typically occur in remote areas far from firefighting management. Wang said accessibility is a problem and it is easy for fires that are more out of reach of fire management to go “beyond control” and become overnight fires.


According to the study, researchers observed an increase in fire weather conditions conducive to overnight fires in recent decades, suggesting an accelerated disruption to the active daytime fire cycle.

Daytime drought indicators predictors of overnight fire
Wang said their research examined the active daytime cycle of 23,557 fires and identified 1,095 overnight burning events in North America from 2017 to 2020. Through their research, they found that daytime drought indicators can predict whether an overnight fire will occur during the night, which in turn could facilitate early detection and management of night-time fires.

By using daytime local fire weather conditions, experts can predict whether or not an overnight fire could occur, which allows firefighters to make appropriate arrangements in the evening. While the research has yet to be implemented, Wang said this could help manage a challenging wildfire season.

“This is something we are so excited about. We were talking to a few of those fire management experts within our system, they were saying this is going to be helpful to the management eventually,” Wang said.

ctran@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kccindytran
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
113,070
12,723
113
Low Earth Orbit
Why so many wildfires in Canada are burning overnight
Author of the article:Cindy Tran
Published Mar 25, 2024 • Last updated 13 hours ago • 3 minute read

A difficult end to the 2023 wildfire season is leading way to a challenging 2024 wildfire season and experts are seeing even more overnight fire events than ever.


Researchers at Natural Resources Canada are looking at daytime drought indicators more often to help predict whether an overnight fire event will occur, said a research scientist with the Northern Forest Centre in Edmonton. According to a new study by wildfire researchers, drought is the main contributor to overnight fires that are becoming larger and more frequent.


Postmedia spoke to Xianli Wang, a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada in Edmonton and one of the authors of the North America-wide study. He said their research can help fire management control overnight fires that are farther away from resources and help bridge the accessibility gap.

Here’s a breakdown of what causes overnight fires, the research and predictors.


Warmer temperatures and lack of rain reprieve the source of overnight fires
Wang said typically, active fires that burn during the day were quiet during the night when the temperature is lower and humidity is higher, which provides a break for firefighters. Fires were also not expected to progress and required less monitoring at night.

A predicted early 2024 wildfire season is bringing with it challenges from last year, which was heavily rooted in drought and little snowpack. However, in recent years overnight fires have become more frequent.

From 2017 to 2020 at least 99 per cent of overnight burning events were associated with large fires, classified as more than 1,000 hectares. Wang said at least one overnight fire was identified in 20 per cent of these large fires, indicating that more overnight burnings are correlated with a high number of burned areas.


“We found drought was the strongest influence to the occurrence of nighttime burning. We also found that the fires with overnight burning, about one-third start burning the day that fire ignited. So eventually they became big fires and about half start burning overnight within two days,” Wang said.

“It is quite often you see overnight burning at the beginning of the fire. So that will leave little time for our firefighting interventions.”

Lightning-caused fires causes additional challenges
In 2023 there were 2.2 million hectares burned with 80 per cent of the area burned was caused by lightning while the other 20 per cent were human-caused fires — often accidental, Wang said.

Lightning-caused fires typically occur in remote areas far from firefighting management. Wang said accessibility is a problem and it is easy for fires that are more out of reach of fire management to go “beyond control” and become overnight fires.


According to the study, researchers observed an increase in fire weather conditions conducive to overnight fires in recent decades, suggesting an accelerated disruption to the active daytime fire cycle.

Daytime drought indicators predictors of overnight fire
Wang said their research examined the active daytime cycle of 23,557 fires and identified 1,095 overnight burning events in North America from 2017 to 2020. Through their research, they found that daytime drought indicators can predict whether an overnight fire will occur during the night, which in turn could facilitate early detection and management of night-time fires.

By using daytime local fire weather conditions, experts can predict whether or not an overnight fire could occur, which allows firefighters to make appropriate arrangements in the evening. While the research has yet to be implemented, Wang said this could help manage a challenging wildfire season.

“This is something we are so excited about. We were talking to a few of those fire management experts within our system, they were saying this is going to be helpful to the management eventually,” Wang said.

ctran@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kccindytran
Time to start cloud seeding.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Twin_Moose