Canadian Wildfire Season - 2023

[Drip_Torch]

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[Drip_Torch]

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[Drip_Torch]

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[Glacier]

Very interesting stuff! I did not have a fire on New Year's eve, but I did have a flood!

And I had to get the water shut off at the street because the water line had broke before my main shut off. And it took hours of trying to phoning the emergency line to not have anyone come. The dispatch lady could not track down the guy that was on call.

Long story short, my basement flooded all night long until 8:30 in the morning.

Having your house burn when you are a kid would be much much worse.

Interesting information about the line between structural fire protection and wildfire protection.

[Drip_Torch]

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[seewood]

They're not anywhere near out of the woods and there are a number of other cities, towns and centers still being impacted. We'll see more scenes like this in the coming days.

yep, we have friends that winter in Concon.

They are definitely concerned.

Thanks so much for the write up Mr. Torch, Great read !
Likely some incentive for me to clean up under the Paramadalys cedar behind us and at the side property line, clean the gutters, log some shrubs etc...

Edit added : From Castanet- :

Rodrigo Mundaca, the governor of the Valparaiso region, said Sunday that he believed some of the fires could have been intentionally caused, replicating a theory that had also been mentioned on Saturday by President Gabriel Boric.

“These fires began in four points that lit up simultaneously,” Mundaca said. “As authorities we will have to work rigorously to find who is responsible.”

[Catsumi]

Ok, so it was decided that one guy who burnt a pile was responsible for underground fire that took off months later. If we are to believe him, he checked the site often and found no activity or even warmth by hand feeling.

If that is the case, how can we be assured that ALL slash burning sites are truly cold and will not flare up again? Does anyone regularly check previous slash burn piles or do we just let it go, thinking that the “experts” are checking regularly.

And if they don’t and the fire lives again another day, destroying homes and forests, would the peeps responsible for checking slash burns, that’s if they do, would ever admit their culpability or blame it on glass, campers, terrorists, whatever?

[seewood]

Ok, so it was decided that one guy who burnt a pile was responsible for underground fire that took off months later. If we are to believe him, he checked the site often and found no activity or even warmth by hand feeling.

If that is the case, how can we be assured that ALL slash burning sites are truly cold and will not flare up again? Does anyone regularly check previous slash burn piles or do we just let it go, thinking that the “experts” are checking regularly.

Wonder if this is an opportunity for a fellow with a mini excavator that is easier to transport and go and dig over these piles late winter or spring. ?

[Catsumi]

Ok, so it was decided that one guy who burnt a pile was responsible for underground fire that took off months later. If we are to believe him, he checked the site often and found no activity or even warmth by hand feeling.

If that is the case, how can we be assured that ALL slash burning sites are truly cold and will not flare up again? Does anyone regularly check previous slash burn piles or do we just let it go, thinking that the “experts” are checking regularly.

Wonder if this is an opportunity for a fellow with a mini excavator that is easier to transport and go and dig over these piles late winter or spring. ?

Possibly, but I’d still like to know if those piles are checked ongoing through to next burn season. According to the Castanet article that DT posted it happened once to a regular joe. I doubt it was a unique happening.

[Babba_not_Gump]

Wonder if this is an opportunity for a fellow with a mini excavator that is easier to transport and go and dig over these piles late winter or spring. ?

Possibly, but I’d still like to know if those piles are checked ongoing through to next burn season. According to the Castanet article that DT posted it happened once to a regular joe. I doubt it was a unique happening.

Many of these burn piles are in areas that have been logged, maybe even slash burned, often there isn't much of a chance for these fires to amount to anything, but they can.
Recent logged and burned areas will still have traffic in them, sometimes for that very reason to check on burns.

Sending in an excavator to dig through the piles on the off chance they're still burning is pretty costly, best just to do a drive-by. They are often pretty easy to spot in the winter, covered in snow. One will see steam and/or smoke coming off them, the colder the easier it is to see them.

But following through as a wildfire is being mopped up, really the only way to determine if there's still a spark down there is "cold trailing". That's digging down into the roots of a burned tree and feeling with your bare hands. If it's hot, there's still a fire down there. Then you dig it out a bit and flood it with water.

I worked on an initial attack crew one year on Vancouver Island. Two crews of four or five guys and a tanker truck. Does the Ministry still have initial attack crews?
Our job was to get the fire out within 24 hours (or was it 48 hours?). If it wasn't out then we were pulled out and a larger crew sent in.
We had about 50 fires that summer and only one gave us trouble. It flared up about two weeks later so we had to go back in. It was also the toughest fire to access. helicoptered in the first time, second time "you guys are walking in".

[Catsumi]

Very interesting of course. ^^^

But didn’t regular Joe say he checked often, no warmth felt by his hands, and yet a flare up still happened.

There seems to be a big push to fire up logging waste, slash burn piles abound, everywhere, here, there but I still haven’t an answer.

Are those slash burn sites patrolled regularly, or do we just take someone’s word for it that it has been done?

There were multiple fires in the back-country attributed to arsonists, cig tossers or cause never named out loud.

If I had my wish, it’d be that DT speak plainly instead in paragraphs galore of “govt-type” speech. I am glad that he is saying something, but I’ve yet to divine what it is he is trying to say.

We all know for certain we are in drought cycle. We all know that the fires are getting worse because of that cycle. We all know that our firefighting forces aren’t doing enough to address fires and put them out, even though they were informed earlier on a problem was in the making.

And, we all know that with our population, we still have to call in help from around the globe.

And STILL our summers have become smoke-choked misery. It wasn’t always this way.

Summer is just months away. How’s it to be this time around?

[Drip_Torch]

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[Catsumi]

Fires still a-smouldering away

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/471573 ... ire-Centre

[Catsumi]

Will $16 million make a difference in fire fighting performance?

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/472450 ... -equipment

[seewood]

Will $16 million make a difference in fire fighting performance?

perhaps with rank 1 and 2 fires and interface fires. Big fires... those are weather dependant.

Sounds like BC are considering more air asset contracts. That could be an interesting dynamic if everyone else is doing the same.