8,450 square kilometres burned as B.C. nears worst wildfire season

Wow. Over 4,000 people working on firefighting efforts.

May they all continue to stay safe while doing so.

Smoke so bad Saturday the streetlights came on around 4:30 pm, people driving with their headlights on. Neighbour said driving on stretches of Hwy 16 they slowed to 50kmh with headlights on it was so bad.
I smoke. I tell you it was that bad it bothered me.

1958 was the worst year for wildfires in B.C. with 8550 square kilometres affected. So far this year the estimate is 8450 square kilometres burnt and there is still a long way to go before the fire season finally comes to an end....Pray for rain!!!

The record has apparently been broken.

Lots of rain needed to help stop the burning but not the type that also carries the risk of lightning strikes.

Smoke has been so bad in Edmonton this week that the skies have been grey, and it hasn't been cloudy.

Record now almost 9000 sq kms.
Wondering if there's any further need for those softwood lumber hearings. So much timber's been lost it should drive supply costs skyward and end the US complaints. Or will they claim the $200 million spent so far fighting fires is a "subsidy"

You know, if these forests were properly managed and subjected to controlled burns every year then there wouldn't be the dangerous buildup of duff that explodes with such ferocity every few decades.

California is starting to reconsider the policy of putting out every fire and is instead looking to allow fires that burn off undergrowth.

The First Nations/Native Americans used these techniques for centuries before Europeans showed up and only when they were removed from the lands that they managed did catastrophic fires become common in North America.

Native Americans did controlled burns?

Yes, yes they did....

Prescribed fire in North American forests and woodlands: history, current practice, and challenges

A Continuity of Tradition; a place where Native Americans still burn the prairies and oak openings

Worse, that area was hit hard by the beetle kill. There's been a decade for unrecovered wood to pile up on the forest floor.
I remember going to our cabin at Green Lake when the bugs first hit and almost shit bricks at how bad it was thru the Cariboo and Nicola areas. Mom was still around, she loved her trees. Told my sister to STFU we're going to get a faller right now to clear the red dead trees you could touch standing on the porch. We never did tell her we did that.
On the same trip I dropped at native friend off at her sister's in Merrit. All along Hwy8 you had to hunt to find a green tree!

BTW the locals here refer to the spring burning as "using the Indian lawnmower". Every year someone's siding gets melted and maybe a phone pole gets burned down, but it's never been anything serious. Not done out in the forest proper, but around the edges of the roads and settlements.
The undergrowth doesn't build up and everything come up thick and green.