Fort McMurray

Trouble today is arson is a major problem what now looks like what happened in Fort Mac.
Already a couple of arsonists have been charged in Alberta, one of them was a firefighters son looking forward to a season of steady employment.
 
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Lots of good info here, I appreciate it.

That was a hella Nat Geo article, Steven.

Interesting, Jim, that dead trees don't burn as hot as green ones? That sounds like good news re the idea of some 'modern' fires burning so hot as to destroy/sterilize the soil.

Willard, I hadn't heard they caught arsonists re McMurray, that is insane.
 
I wonder if the new very large tanker plane has been involved in the fire fighting efforts. I think that it is sad that people deliberately light fires and even more so, some of the people being fire fighters.
 
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I could not find any arson indication behind the FtMc fire, lightning has been cited as the cause so far. The son of a firefighter was charged in unrelated arson fires.

I did find that other areas are taking serious notice of the fire because the same thing could happen to them, as Stephen noted. http://missoulian.com/news/local/fo...cle_5555c11b-7e3f-5cb6-aaa4-d84170d54c73.html

Speaking of arson, what if terrorists set fires like this....wipe out a city of 90k people using a match.
 
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How does one do that.
 
Incorporate investigative and law enforcement services automatically into the fire fighting.
On our fires her e, we have FBI personell already dispatched on the scene if it looks more some one set it. Like, no lightening or run away burn piles.
That is an example. They are looking at the fires as a good way terrorism can have an effect on resources.
 
I could not find any arson indication behind the FtMc fire, lightning has been cited as the cause so far. The son of a firefighter was charged in unrelated arson fires.
Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant other recent fires in Alberta were arson started like the firefighters son for example
I just saw the CTV news yesterday and they said there was no reports of sightings of lightning in the Fort Mac area prior to the fires.
So I think man made is the culprit whether it's accidental or arson.
 
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They are looking at the fires as a good way terrorism can have an effect on resources.

What a world we live in.

Thanks for cleaning up the spelling, MB
 
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92 degrees the day the fire started. Breaks the record by 10 degrees from 60 years ago of 82 degrees. We haven't even hit 80 here. Its barely may.
 
I wasn't around 60 years ago. 82 is definitly a Canadian heat wave. 92 contributes to huge unprecedented forest fires like no one has ever seen. The rate of burning is far outpacing the regeneration at this point and its only picking up steam. It doesn't matter what you think about climate change, it does matter how we deal with the consequences. So regardless of wether or not you think the theory is false. The consequences are very real and we have to deal with them one way or another. No real point of arguing with a forest fire, flood, drought, or hurricane. You prove co2 in the atmosphere traps heat with a 2 liter bottle. 8th grade science experiment. But we will just have to learn how to live with it at this point.
 
92F at the start of May in northern Alberta is definitely a heat wave but you have to factor in heat being absorbed from the sun by the dark green landscape of the Boreal Forest.
I logged in this forest when it was -40 below on a bright sunny day, snow was melting off the dark green spruce branches.
It's been a weird spring as others here have commented, El Nino is definitely rearing it ugly head. Thank goodness California is getting some more moisture.
 
No problem Kevin. Just wondering what the folks in 1870 or 1910 might have thought.

There are a lot of factors involved. Lots of people throw around the disastrous catch word. Is it disastrous? The Fort Mac fire would have barely made local Canadian news had it not been for a oil town right next to it.
 
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Lotta folks say the weather anomaly there is from el nino which afaik is a "naturally caused" weather phenomenon.

It is a good counter point you make Jim. But some scientists say the pace of burning is much higher than it has been for 1000s of years based on evidence found in core samples from lake bottoms. And as a fire guy, you can probably appreciate that the fire season is 78 days longer now than it was a 'few' years ago
 
The Fort Mac fire would have barely made local Canadian news had it not been for a oil town right next to it.
Yep alot bigger fires here never made the news but 90,000 people getting evacuated from a place that greatly helps drive the Canadian and American economy definitely has opened a few eyes.
 
Our Fire Season in Tasmania started early this year, like December 2015. Permits were on early and some of the earliest times for total fire bans being declared.
Things are weird.
 
Lotta folks say the weather anomaly there is from el nino which afaik is a "naturally caused" weather phenomenon.

It is a good counter point you make Jim. But some scientists say the pace of burning is much higher than it has been for 1000s of years based on evidence found in core samples from lake bottoms. And as a fire guy, you can probably appreciate that the fire season is 78 days longer now than it was a 'few' years ago

I also know that money not spent fighting this years fire will not be allocated for next years fire. Not saying everything is screwed up, but a lot of fires are managed as revenue streams.

Anyway, I get that things look bad right now. There have been REAL slow years in the last twenty as well. Last years fire season was not extreme. The lower 48 had some bad fires, we always do. Alaska had a doozie, but thats what happens in AK. They dont fight much fire in AK, no people and no reason to stop mother nature from her work. You might have 8 jumpers on a 10,000 acre fire.

Lots of decisions have been made in the last 100 years. Nearly none of them have decisions that work in harmony with Mother Nature. So, a lot of what I see is nature trying to fix the f ups of humans for the last century and a half. We are just starting to figure out how things work, but have been doing it wrong for a long time, plus now people live where they should not.

My only question about the 1000 year old trees would be how would they be able to tell if there were other trees that burned completely away? Or how would they be able to tell if 100 years earlier there were vast forests that were reduced to ash?

Studying a tree in the bottom of a lake would seem to me to be a mere snapshot in time. I feel that we are looking at a snapshot right now. Humans have made drastic differences, thats for sure, but we are always sure that what is happening right now must surely be WAY worse than it was yesterday. We have very short memories, we have seen nothing like what was happening in the 1870's.
 
What happened in the 1870s? On one hand you say that we have made a lot of bad decisions that have led to the loss of healthy forests but you also say that we have not influenced the climate. Isnt the mismanagement of our forests and the mismanagement of our grasslands along with the mismanagement of our water and air, the same thing as the mismanagement of our climate? These forest were not burning at the rate they are today in 1870. For the most part these are not second growth forest like you have in montana. Its a pretty untouched landscape going back thousands of years and it is being altered in a matter of years. Its pretty incredible.
 
You sound like you want me to admit something Kevin, so I will.

I believe that both sides of the climate debate are so monumentally full of shit that if the hot side told me to pack suncreen I would pack a heavy jacket. If the cold side told me to bring a parka I would bring my shorts and flip flops.

So there. I am not going to get invited to Al Gores climate summit in the tropics and I am probably not going sailing with the CEO of Conoco Phillips.
 
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