2024 Wildfire Season

[FSTO]

RCAF are ready for another role?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816538816481755275

 

[Haggis]

But you lose four fisherman for a few days...

'Nothing short of a miracle': Missing N.L. fishing crew arrives home safely​

Fishing boat lost contact Wednesday evening​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/navigator-found-safe-1.7270309

"The Perfect Storm" starring George Clooney has been running on cable channels quite a bit over the last few days.

So has "Zero Dark Thirty" for that matter. Something we don't know yet????

 

[childs56]

Four pages discussing the fires in BC, the evacuation of 25K people from the Jasper wildfire, but no mention of the 10K impacted by the wildfire in Labrador City.

• CBC News (2024, July 20)
• Canadian Red Cross (n.d.)

How many people visit Labrador City compared to how many visited Jasper National Park?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I would not want to be any senior management in Parks Canada visiting Jasper or the area for the next couple of years.

 

[RangerRay]

Many planned prescribed burns were kiboshed because of pressure from NIMBYs. Some locals and businesses didn’t want their mountain views smoked out.

 

[MilEME09]

Many planned prescribed burns were kiboshed because of pressure from NIMBYs. Some locals and businesses didn’t want their mountain views smoked out.

and thats politics at play, from reading their website it sounds like Parks Canada had more a mitigation role then an actual fighting roll except for municipal fire departments which had wildfire crews, anything more and they asked AB for help. Problem is as you mention, if locals don't let them do whats needed it can be an issue. It should be noted that parks Canada did build a rather substantial fire break around the town were being built this spring

Fire protection and restoration projects

parks.canada.ca

 

[The Bread Guy]

Part of the problem is not starting the fires....but keeping the fire contained where you want it be.

Ambition is good in everything but over achieving in Prescribed Fire Ignition shuts programs down. We're going to need a bunch of beer if we start going down the prescribed burn rabbit hole.

And likewise we can use at least one more round going through the merits/cost/differences of fires vs. managed forests and infrastructure/impact/local vs. landscape views.

But for a different look...here's Jasper Valley in 1915:
https://explore.mountainlegacy.ca/stations/show/2732

That area burnt last night.

For reference some of the Drought Code values (think of large log heavy fuels and/or deeper submuskeg) was over a value of 700 in part of the Jasper Valley. That is a multi-year, drought level value I had to read a couple of times as a value of 300 is a Very High rating and 425 is Extreme. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System | Fire Weather Maps

Last update they provided in the afternoon indicated that winds last night were 100km/hr.

I owe a few structural firefighters some beer for hanging around under those conditions.

Thanks for your bit of the REST of the story - take care of yourself as much as you can in these crazy times

 

[dimsum]

Oh FFS.

The blaze in Jasper fueled a wider disinformation firestorm

As wildfires scorch ever-larger parts of Canada and force thousands to evacuate, they are fueling the spread of right-wing disinformation and climate conspiracy theories.

www.nationalobserver.com

 

[foresterab]

This is the formal, outward facing assesment. Green is intact. Red is destroyed. And Yellow is visable damage.

Released today to show a better context of where the fire hit town and what survived...

 

[foresterab]

Oh FFS.

The blaze in Jasper fueled a wider disinformation firestorm

As wildfires scorch ever-larger parts of Canada and force thousands to evacuate, they are fueling the spread of right-wing disinformation and climate conspiracy theories.

www.nationalobserver.com

This a huge problem and it's not just with this fire. In an age of instant media updates and snapshot reporting the is more and more pressure to ensure you have not only 100% accurate information but also almost instant updates....but it's just not possible. In the absence of information then you get the theories and rumor mill going. Plus there are more and more alternate sources of information than the government agencies compared to 10 or 20 years ago so it's even easier to start spinning stories.

I will give kudo's to Jasper information officers on this one...they have been fairly consistent with 4x a day updates and while it hasn't been as specific as people may want they are not only explaining the actions for each time period but the goal moving forward. For example they waited until the full town survey was done before releasing the information as complete as possible to get ahead of the rumor mill/video clips/media screen shots of what remains.

Have they done everything I would have liked...no. But having been in their shoes I also would consider that one part of the response that is going as well as can be expected in a super-charged political mess.

 

[Booter]

View attachment 86905
This is the formal, outward facing assesment. Green is intact. Red is destroyed. And Yellow is visable damage.

Released today to show a better context of where the fire hit town and what survived...

It is tragic and it’s life affecting for these people. But this is better than the initial assessment from early when it moved into town.

 

[RangerRay]

Oh FFS.

The blaze in Jasper fueled a wider disinformation firestorm

As wildfires scorch ever-larger parts of Canada and force thousands to evacuate, they are fueling the spread of right-wing disinformation and climate conspiracy theories.

www.nationalobserver.com

I lived in a community many years ago that had several nearby fire when social media was just getting going (very early 2010s). The BC Forest Service, regional district and municipality were posting updates on Facebook. In the comments section, people were posting all kinds of misinformation, like the fire had jumped the river or had reached the community. Not based on reality. It was the first time I saw social media being used to spread misinformation in real time.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Oh FFS.

The blaze in Jasper fueled a wider disinformation firestorm

As wildfires scorch ever-larger parts of Canada and force thousands to evacuate, they are fueling the spread of right-wing disinformation and climate conspiracy theories.

www.nationalobserver.com

There was at least one Liberal MP who thought it a good idea to tweet out how Jasper was a result of conservatives being opposed Liberal Climate Change policies, so yeah, lots of idiots, all around.

I have been to both Jasper and Banff in recent years. In both cases, I was immediately concerned by over mature, fuel choked forests too close to people. We have really got to get over our fetish for not modifying the landscape in National Parks. If you look at pictures of both Banff and Jasper from the late 1890s, the forest cover on the mountains around both towns was considerably more sparse. What we now, thanks to nearly complete fire suppression from the end of WW2 is not natural, at all. Either we burn or log those forests under our terms or Nature will eventually burn it without regard to us humans.