Fire Season: Will it soon be all year round in BC?

Dry lightening all around  the mountains here tis nasty.

Dry lightening freaks me out. I was in Blue River once when a storm hit. One minute it was calm and then the wind just rushed in like a wave.  Was staying in a campground and everyone just started running for their vehicles and we evacuated to a nearby restaurant along with dozens of other people. A bunch of use just stood under the cover by the door and watch it strike in the hills all around us. Pew, pew, bang, pew, BOOM!  Then stood there as the smoke and several little fires started. Scary times.

Politics101 wrote:

"In fact, I've often wondered if it would make any sense if Canada and Australia developed a combined water bomber fleet, and shared costs. 

Water bombers and crews are expensive, and there's little point in having them idle in either country over the winters."

 

I don't believe that the water bombers are owned by the government but by a private firm that then contracts with various governments for there use.

 

Anyone know what the flying range of those planes are - wonder if they would be able to make the long haul across the Pacific.

Water Bombing 101: there are two different types of airtankers - 1)ground-based retardant and 2)scoopers.  All can be of various capacities.  Scoopers (a la Martin Mars) are most effective in areas where there is ready access to water, as their efficacy is based upon as many scoops/drops as possible on the fire in order to control the fire.  The further they have to go to water, the slower the cycle time.  Retardant tankers have to return after each drop to an airport in order to fill up their tanks with retardant (the red stuff you see dropping out of the bottom of the plane)  Their drop tanks have doors that are configured so as to drop lines of retardant, through which (hopefully) the fire will not burn.

I've never been to Australia, but I'd assume that lakes suitable for scooping are few and far between, and so retardant tankers are probably going to be the best bet, IMHO.  That being said, the conditions that were being reported during the last Aussie fire season (>35C, low humidity and strong breeze) are almost unstoppable.

Sharing aeroplanes is a good idea in theory, but there would probably be some problems in execution...  It's a highly skilled job, and you'd probably need ~ 5 good years to become effective and safe as a captain on the machines.  That means that some of our guys/gals are going to have to go there and train the Aussies.  Part of the attraction of the job is that you work all summer, and then get all winter off - you might find it difficult to recruit trainers to do that..

Getting the bigger planes there wouldn't be that difficult - Vancouver, San Fransisco, Hawaii, Fiji/Samoa, Brisbane.  With ferry fuel tanks (extra fuel for longer flights) installed in the fuselages, the longest leg is about 2200 nautical miles..  The smaller planes (like the one that crashed in Kelowna last week) are actually converted agricultural spray planes - of which Aus has dozens.

In terms of the ownership of the fleet across Canada, Conair, based in Abotsford, BC owns their own aeroplanes, and has the contract for BC and Alberta (some of the Alberta machines are owned by a company called Airspray)  In Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland, the tankers are owned and operated by the Provincial governments.  New Brunswick is private, PEI and Nova Scotia, I dunno..NWT the planes are owned by the government, and operated by a private company..

Ya, Pemberton residents are not too happy about their fire resources being pulled to action the Blackcomb fire.

Now Lillooet is under evac alert and a hydro transmission line has been burnt near Seton Lake.

Quote:

The forest fire spans more than 2,000 hectares in the steep, rocky terrain between Lillooet and the communities of Shalalth and Seton Portage, about 25 km west of Lillooet.

There were 4 fires started here today from lightening stikes, that they have located so far. But we also got a bunch of rain, so it may help, if it got past the canopy.

There are fires ins all directions, if the rain did not help to contain them, actually. But I am pretty confident it did and have been listening to forestry radio all evening. The RAPP and IA crews were all over them, and they were heli-bucketing immediately too.

But thank you!!! :)

Politics101 wrote:

"In fact, I've often wondered if it would make any sense if Canada and Australia developed a combined water bomber fleet, and shared costs. 

Water bombers and crews are expensive, and there's little point in having them idle in either country over the winters."

 

I don't believe that the water bombers are owned by the government but by a private firm that then contracts with various governments for there use.

 

Anyone know what the flying range of those planes are - wonder if they would be able to make the long haul across the Pacific.

 

 

It makes far more sense to exchange fire fighting crews rather than water bombers, and BC fire crews have been sent to Austraiia to help combat wildfires there.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/02/14/bc-firefighte...

The situation near Lillooet sounds very bad.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/08/03/bc-fire003.html

I was driving on the Coquihalla yesterday and saw a very high cloud that looked like a small cauliflower (very hard edges). I think it was as a result of the Terrace Mountain fire west of Lake Okanagan. A little different from driving across the Connector in 2003 and seeing the Okanagan Mountain fire (I lived in Kelowna at the time).

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/08/02/bc-fintry-lil...

A Ontario helicopter pilot, who was fighting the Lillooet forest fire, is missing and presumed dead, after his helicopter crashed into the Fraser when he was attempting to fill his bucket.

All the best to the Woodhead family!

http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1126214

Yes, they did find Mr Woodhead, so sad for his family... there is a service on Sunday in Lillooet on the bridge over the Fraser.

No actually is not cooling off, it is way hot again this week, and the idiot down the road actually has a fire going when there is a fire ban, just waiting for the forest service to come and shut it down actually.

I hope Whistler has no snow.

scott wrote:

remind wrote:

No actually is not cooling off, it is way hot again this week,

Exactly right. Here in the South East we are expecting high '30s this week. A few cool or wet days does not end the fire season. Tthere are at least 4 weeks to go and maybe till the end of September. One of the climate change effects seems to be LATER as well as drier and hotter summers. Most of the action in the big fire year of 2003 hapenned AFTER mid August.

The Okanagan Mountain Fire began August 16th, but there were major fires before then, particularly north of Kamloops.

Remind - did the Forest service come and put out the idiot's fire and was the idiot issued a ticket?

140 fores fires currently burning in BC, and perhaps a 100 more are expected through out the day today, caused by a electrical storm moving in, and high heat.

Of course, it is all possible because of the standing dead, pine beetle killed trees, that the BC and federal governments did nothing about.

And why aren't 1000's of  trained BC emergency fire fighters  being used to fight these fires? As they are instead using fire fighters from other countries and provinces, and a much greater cost to the province's tax payers, than the emergency fire fighters would, who are currently sitting idle.

nope

What you think they started a web site to complain?

There are 100's in NIFAC alone sitting idle doing nothing, except collecting EI and welfare, even though they are trained and experienced fire fighters.

No..they are not, just the regular ones.

And most go back to school the first week anyway, so they are not available usually, while they are this year.

NorthReport wrote:

Better get used to it, as the planetary forecast for the next 5 years is hot, hot, and more hot.

Other stats aside, one trend I have noticed is that the seasons are getting later; later springs and later falls for instance. AFAIK this is the first year that all BC firefighters are deployed during the first week of September.

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One struggle, many fronts.

There's been too much growth in the wildland-urban interface, all those new subdivisions.  Same problem a lot of wildland fire organizations are facing. 

This is so depressing. It's like summer has been permanently chopped in half.