scrubbedexpat091

A fire in WA state has crossed into BC

https://globalnews.ca/news/4395253/h...ource=GlobalBC

caretaker

My sister in Oliver said there's another new fire burning west of Keremeos now, and that the smoke yesterday had a weird yellow - gray tinge to it. She said it's supposed to clear a bit today then worsen on Sunday and Monday.

scrubbedexpat091

2018 British Columbia wildfires | Google Crisis Map

Danny B

Jesus it is bad in Kamloops right now...

scrubbedexpat091

It's very yellowish in Vancouver today from the smoke haze, hard to explain exactly what the light looks like.

Luckily our air quality isn't super bad, only moderate health risk, nothing like Kamloops and up north.

caretaker

This is 50 miles north of Regina this morning, and it got steadily worse throughout the day. When I drove back from BC almost 2 weeks ago there was smoke the whole way and it's been that way since.

scilly

Air quality advisories are now in place from BC all the way east to Manitoba.

BC is also getting smoke from fires below the line.

woodworm

It's my first time experiencing wildfires and I find it has an apocalyptical quality to it... . All the destruction just depresses me. And at the same time I have to keep 50 tourists happy that have paid thousands of dollars to see the beautiful BC and Rockies scenery.... it's very difficult to keep my spirits and theirs up at the moment...… Emerald Lake 2 days ago , there can be beauty in smoke...

scilly

It is unfortunate that all the fires will have a big impact on tourists and tourism .......... as well the devastation left behind. The burnt out forests will take many many years to begin to recover, not only because the trees take so long to reach maturity, but also because the heat of the fire literally destroys the soil structure, leaving it nutrient-less ........ basically all a wild fire leaves behind is ash.

I have photographs of a region in north-eastern BC, along the North Thompson River valley where a wild fire went through in 2003. I took photographs the following year, and again in 2016 and 2017. There are still NO large trees, just small shrubs and trees less than 3-4' tall, lots of burnt trunks of downed trees left to provide some form of stabilization to the often very steep slopes and protection for young plants.

It will be at least 100 years before that area begins to look anything like it was in 2003.

That fire was caused by a man who lived in Barriere, BC who smoked a cigarette in his garden, and thought (wrongly) that he had put it out in a gravel patch. He had not, and the resulting fire burnt almost all the buildings in Barriere, the local lumber mill, jumped up the hillside and over the top into the North Thompson Valley, where it jumped the river and up and over the next hills.It eventually burnt for 75 days, destroyed over 26,400 hectares and over 70 homes ........ you'll find it as the McLure Fire.

The man who had the cigarette in his garden, immediately admitted what he had done, was charged, went to court and was fined several thousand dollars .................. and his neighbours had a whip round to pay the fine for him because they said they knew he had not done it deliberately.

At the same time, another fire caused the evacuation of Kelowna and destruction of many buildings there.

The wild fires last summer in the Cariboo region are what led to the massive mud slides when the region had heavy rains a couple of weeks ago, with one woman now declared dead after the car she was in was swept off the road. So far as I have heard, her body is still missing.

But this seems to be the new norm, unfortunately. NSW in Australia already has major fires even though it is not yet even spring, but they have been in a serious drought situation for many months.


Vancouver once again has a heavy fire haze, an orange ball sometimes visible ............. basically it looks like a cloudy October day before the rain arrives. Air quality warnings have been expanded through next week.

Danny B

Some forest fires are actually good believe it or not.

scilly

Oh yes!

Part of the problem with the current situations is that the powers-that-be, the scientists and the politicos determined years ago, against previous knowledge that there should be no burning of detritus in forests.

Previously, First Nations people on all continents had carried out controlled burning having discovered over thousands of years that it was helpful.

Plus natural fires occurred every year, burnt hot, and fast, and cleared out dead and dry grass and timber.

The result was that most forest fires covered only small areas

But then came Smokey the Bear in the USA in the 1950s I believe, who encouraged everyone to be careful and NOT cause forest fires. Country after country followed suit.

So what was the result ...................

some plants had seeds that needed fire to germinate. No more germination, and therefore little growth of new plants of those species, just older and older trees that would eventually die and fall to the ground to dry and rot.

All detritus on the forest floor (dry dead plants, twigs, shrubs and fallen trees) just lay there, and the depth increased over the years of no burning.

Now there is an incredible amount of fuel for both naturally caused and human caused fires, resulting in the scenes that we have been seeing for the last 10-20 years.


Now what is everyone saying???

All the forest fire experts are saying that controlled burning and clearing should be carried out.


There is also the problem caused by lack of control of where building can occur ................ people love to live in the forest, with trees separating them form their neighbours. No control of that, and no control of materials used, has led to what is called "interface" where humans are living inside the forests all over the world, with little or no space separating their buildings from the forest.

Catastrophe!


BC now catagorizes wild fires based on where they occur and whether buildings or lives of humans or farm animals are in danger. The people in charge concentrate on fires that are or could soon be dangerous to life and property

If a fire is way up in the mountain or in a remote area and there are no buildings, the fire is left on its own. They watch it from the air, ready to deploy fire fighters if the situation changes

Of course, some people don't like that .............. it causes smoke to drift into valleys, towns and cities, but also many ranchers put their cattle on to Crown land for the summer, often in those remote areas ........... and they hate to have their animals killed in a fire.


This is why we see references to "565 wild fires in BC" and "46 fires of note" (or whatever the daily figures are ................. in other words, around 500 fires are just being watched and left to burn themselves out.

scrubbedexpat091

Problem is humans think they can control nature, forests have burned long before humans ever appeared and will continue to do so long after we are gone. Humans really need to learn we cannot manage nature, nature manages us.

Of course also depends on the vegetation, California in the southern part isn't so much forest, but dry chaparral and this eco system is very adapted to fires and recovers very quickly, usually within 1-2 years after a fire.

Siouxie

I remember the gorse fires on the heathlands in England.. and how within a year or two, new growth appeared and the land became a green and pleasant one again, sustaining wildlife. I've been out beating the ground to put out breakouts during heathland fires, back in the day, rescuing adders and other critters.. it's scary being surrounded by fire, even when there aren't any real trees around. It's the wild life I always feel bad for - and the pets / domesticated animals / livestock of those people that have built lives in the area and can't get them out. When the Alberta fires were going on I got quite tearful at all the pets and livestock that were trapped or killed.. and in the California fires, where ranches lost so many horses and other livestock.

scilly

Yes, some areas recover very quickly ....... but most of the trees that form the mature forest in Canada are slow-growing, plus they also follow a succession.

The first new growth will be herbaceous plants and some shrubs, then deciduous trees such as alder followed often by birch.

Each stage provides a) improvement of the soil and b) shade for the more tender seedlings of the next in succession.

The conifers are the last, they don't really begin to grow until the alders and birches are established.

Then the shrubs and deciduous trees gradually die out as they are shaded by the conifers.

This is why it takes so long for a burnt over area to even begin to look as if it might recover.


OH and I were absolutely gob-smacked about 12 years ago when we were told to go visit a National Park in Victoria state that had been devastated by a wild fire in the January/February.

We visited it in the October of the same year, and all the Eucalyptus trees were covered with these weird outgrowths, all the way up the trunks and along every branch. We'd never seen anything like it, and we are both trained botanists!

It is a special type of growth that these and one or two other species demonstrate, and is their response to the fire. In other words, they survive.

The nearest we get in Canada if is that the cones of some conifers need exposure to fire to open and release their seed, and some seed need exposure to fire before they will germinate.

And, of course, germination and growth gets slower and slower the further north in Canada.

scrubbedexpat091

Example from California about the benefits of fire and certain species, the Giant Sequoias for example need fire.

Fire and the Giant Sequoia


So.California has lots of eucalyptus trees, apparently were brought over back in the day (1800's) as they grew fast and people thought the wood would be useful, of course the wood is pretty useless, so now especially in San Diego there are tons of these trees. Sometimes when people cut one down but dont remove the entire tree, stump and roots, it will grow back in the way mentioned above which also happens after a fire, hard buggers to kill.

Upside to all the eucalyptus is the San Diego Zoo has unlimited supply for their Koalas and they harvest the trees for other zoo's and ship daily or weekly amounts around North America.