[andyt]

So for the Elizabeth May haters - I just read she said the fires are related to climate change after being asked that very question. You want her to lie about her beliefs to protect your rightie pc (didn't beaver come up with a term for that?) sensibilities?

[Thanos]

I'll give Bucky a break if she was just answering a question. I'll save my absolute and genuine hate for the Toronto and Vancouver dilettantes who choose this of all moments to peddle their arrogance, contempt, and smarm for those who don't fit their trendy vision of what a good Canadian is.

[andyt]

Probably a better time to focus on all the Canadians who have offered their support in response to this calamity than a few twits. Just look at all the stories that JaredMilne has posted about various regions.

[Alta_redneck]

Now the evacuation centre in Anzac is under a volunteer evacuation order.

[Freakinoldguy]

andyt andyt:

So for the Elizabeth May haters - I just read she said the fires are related to climate change after being asked that very question. You want her to lie about her beliefs to protect your rightie pc (didn't beaver come up with a term for that?) sensibilities?

Thank God there were never any forest fires before global warming because we'd have lost all those million year old trees in Northern Alberta.

And for the record, no I don't want her lying about her beliefs but, I'd like to see her to stop using her position to make blanket and unprovable statements since it's irresponsible and borders on being inflamatory propaganda.

[Alta_redneck]

Alta_redneck Alta_redneck:

Now the evacuation centre in Anzac is under a volunteer evacuation order.

Well that changed real quick, buses rolled in at about 11:20pm and planned to depart at midnight now that Anzac became a manditory evac.

[martin14]

The third video, with sparks raining on the guy's truck , and the last line of trees just erupting as he goes by. ..

[DrCaleb]

martin14 martin14:

https://weather.com/news/weather/video/footage-of-wildfire-escape


Having to drive right beside that.

That's the hill descending from Abasand to the highway. Beacon Hill would have been directly in front, and the Hospital directly behind.

Damn!

[DrCaleb]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

An acquaintance of mine at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL-FIRE) says they have yet to receive a request for aid and assistance from Alberta.

Meanwhile we've got around 120 aircraft sitting on the ground, ready to go.

http://www.kcra.com/news/cal-fire-preps ... n/39318946

This was discussed on the news. There can only be so many planes in the air at one time, and we have no where right now to land them. The airport was under direct threat from fire for most of yesterday.

[DrCaleb]

Alta_redneck Alta_redneck:

Now the evacuation centre in Anzac is under a volunteer evacuation order.

Anzac, Fort McMurray First Nation and Gregoire (town) are now under mandatory evacuation.

There were hundreds of families staying in the Anzac Rec center, and hundreds more camped out on the Ft.Mac FN. Now they all have to evacuate again.

And there was a province wide alert for fires started in High Level.

[BRAH]

This is horrific on multiple levels with no end in sight.

[DrCaleb]

$1:

Just like a camp bonfire, the heat of the flames pushes the air into a convection column. When there is little wind, the fire burns straight up, not sideways, creeping slowly through the brush, occasionally flaring up through the needles of a conifer with a bright yellow roar, something called candling. In the absence of firefighters, the fire moves forward gradually, finding new fuel along its edge as the fuel behind the edge smolders to ash.

But powerful winds like those in Fort McMurray can bend the convection column forward so it passes through the crowns of the trees just ahead of the fire front. Instead of candling individually, the fire leaps through the needled crowns even before the fuel behind has finished burning. Then the process is repeated.

Instead of just a thin leading edge of the fire gradually spreading, a wide swath of forest burns at once, flaring up into the sky, throwing up bark, branches, even whole trees.

Firefighters standing in front of the blaze would suffocate as the fire consumes the oxygen and replaces it with smoke. That's why, despite economic damage, they must be pulled out. Water bombers have almost no effect.

Sometimes called a firestorm, such an intense inferno can spread faster still as embers are sent up and then pitched forward by the upper winds. The radiant heat — the reason you have to move back from the campfire when toasting a marshmallow — is so powerful it can ignite trees across a river, road or firebreak.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fort-mc ... -1.3565940

[xerxes]

BRAH BRAH:

This is horrific on multiple levels with no end in sight.

Too true. Some of the videos Martin posted look like the prelude to The Road by Cormac McCarthy and the scenes afterwords in the affected neighbourhoods looks like the wasteland from Fallout.

The speed of this fire in unreal. Yesterday morning it was off in the distance. Then at noon it was getting closer, then half and hour later it was GTFO now.

[andyt]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

andyt andyt:

So for the Elizabeth May haters - I just read she said the fires are related to climate change after being asked that very question. You want her to lie about her beliefs to protect your rightie pc (didn't beaver come up with a term for that?) sensibilities?

Thank God there were never any forest fires before global warming because we'd have lost all those million year old trees in Northern Alberta.

Wow, that's a nice red herring.

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

And for the record, no I don't want her lying about her beliefs but, I'd like to see her to stop using her position to make blanket and unprovable statements since it's irresponsible and borders on being inflamatory propaganda.

So "I have no opinion on that?" You'd be bashing her for being hypocritical. As for unprovable, well nothing is going to satisfy you as proof, is it? She made clear that she is not attributing this fire as being caused by GW, but that large scale fires like this are becoming more common because of GW. Seems to be what's happening. Look at last year's fire season here in BC.

[Thanos]

Once again it's showing how intense firefighting in one year can lead to disaster a decade or more later. That blanket of leaves, needles, and deadwood has to be burnt off at regular intervals in smaller controllable fires, natural or man-made, in order to prevent a massive build-up of fuel that results in an out-of-control future mega-fire. There's two things folks who haven't been to the McMurray area don't understand. One, that forest is thick, dense, and encloses the entire city; even a deliberate cut-back of a hundred yards or so from the city edges might have been a huge preventative factor in those neighbourhoods not being destroyed. Two, the McMurray area is also where the jet-stream does it's southbound arch most of the time in spring/summer/fall. It can get much warmer, with dense hot air, in northern Alberta than in the south part of the province because the heat the jet stream brings up from the American southwest desert gets trapped in the arch above the immediate area. Check out the jet-stream maps on a weather website and it shows where northern Alberta/Saskatchewan is the invisible border that divides the hot west from the cooler east. I've had moments when I've been on jobs up there, thanks to the trapped jet-stream heat as well as having to wear those thick fire-resistant coveralls, where I've nearly passed out from overheating. Maybe this is or isn't associated with climate change or an especially perverse El Nino effect but there's no way that it doesn't contribute to making that forest extra-dry for a potential conflagration.