The entire town of Hudson’s Hope in northeastern British Columbia has been emptied as the nearby Mount McAllister fire spreads out of control.
The wildfire was ignited by lightning on Sunday, and had grown to more than 20,000 hectares (more than 49,000 acres) by Thursday.
Local officials went door-to-door through the town, urging the town’s 1,150 residents to evacuate, The Huffington Post reported.
The Mount McAllister fire is one of more than 100 wildfires currently raging in British Columbia, where tinder-dry conditions have fueled one of the worst fire seasons the province has seen in a decade.
The Alberta department of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development posted this video of the Spreading Creek fire. It includes scenes showing a briefing for firefighters, hose lays, sprinklers, fireline construction in heavy timber, helicopter drops, and single engine air tankers. It was uploaded to YouTube on June 11, 2014.
Dry heat is fueling several out of control wildfires in Alberta and British Columbia this week, where fire officials say this is the worst fire season the region has seen since 2003.
As of Monday morning, around 11 fires were burning out of control in Alberta, according to the province’s wildfire situation report. Meanwhile, the explosive Spreading Creek fire near Banff National Park, British Columbia, is being held for the first time since lightning ignited it on July 3, The Calgary Herald reported. The fire had burned more than 6,800 hectares (around 16,800 acres) as of July 14.
The fire has intermittently shut down parts of the Icefields Parkway that winds from Banff to Jasper. Photos capturing its spectacular plume of smoke have sparked an international interest in the fire.
While fires spread on both sides of the national park, conditions are no different in BC’s interior, where a fire ignited on Tuesday in tinder-dry country near West Kelowna. The so-called Mount Boucherie fire had burned around 12 acres by Tuesday evening, and was being held by fire retardant lines, local media reported. The fire continued to burn into Tuesday night.
West Kelowna is in a fire-prone corridor known for regular wildfires. In 2003 in nearby Kelowna, lightning ignited the Okanagan Mountain Park fire, which went on to burn hundreds of homes and prompted the largest fire-evacuation in Canadian history.
I’ve spent some time in Kelowna and last year wrote a story about the Okanagan Mountain fire, ten years after the historic blaze. It had some eerie parallels to another wildfire, the Waldo Canyon fire, which I covered while working at The Gazette in Colorado Springs. Read my story on the Okanagan Mountain fire here.
Smoke from Oak, Diego, and San Juan Fires, 6-30-2014. Wildfire Today and WeatherUnderground
Smoke from three fires in southwest Arizona and northern New Mexico is having a significant impact in those states as well as in parts of Texas Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas.
But that smoke is small potatoes compared to what is going on in northern Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and off the coast of New Brunswick. The smoke that is now over the Atlantic probably drifted across much of Canada and parts of New England.
There is not much current information available about the Diego Fire on the Santa Fe National Forests in New Mexico, but we determined that it is 25 miles northwest of Los Alamos, 7 miles southwest of Coyote, and 67 miles north of Albuquerque. It is listed at 1,000 acres at Inciweb, but it appears to be much larger than that in the satellite imagery we have seen.
The Oak and San Juan Fires in southwest Arizona are listed at 11,000 and 5,700 acres, respectively.
To see the most current smoke reports on Wildfire Today, visit the articles tagged “smoke” at https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/smoke/
*The Assayii Fire in northwest New Mexico, reported on Friday the 13th, has burned 12,107 acres on the Navajo Nation in the Bowl Canyon area.
*Missoula smokejumpers got checked out on a new Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) EC135 helicopter on Tuesday.
*On Tuesday five fires were intentionally set in vegetation in Oakland, California about two miles from where the Tunnel Fire began, which in 1991 killed 25 people (23 civilians, 1 police officer, and 1 firefighter), injured 150, and destroyed 2,449 single-family dwellings and 437 apartment and condominium units.
*California will give $10 million of the $48 million of the “fire fees” they have collected to counties and organizations who intend to use the funds for fire prevention and mitigation projects.
*Evaluations of how agencies in San Diego County handled the rash of wildfires in mid-May determined that communications was major issue; that and the need for a third helicopter, but the $5 million request for the helicopter was not approved.
*Squirrels may be to blame for some patchy reproduction of lodgepole pines following the 1988 wildfires in Yellowstone National Park.
*An unfortunate raven started a wildfire 25 kilometers northeast of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada when it contacted electrical wires; we will add this to our Animal Arson series, although it may have been a case of suicide arson.
*Dan Glickman and Harris Sherman, two former very high-ranking appointees in the Department of Agriculture, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times supporting the bill that would allow the Forest Service to draw money from federal disaster funds when firefighting costs reach 70 percent of the 10-year average. Thanks and a hat tip go out to Doug
…It goes without saying that flying close to wildfires can be dangerous – which is why safety always takes priority, and teamwork is important. Each airtanker group is led by an air attack officer (or ‘AAO’ for short), flying in the lead plane (called a “birddog”). The AAO acts as the ‘eye in the sky’ for the group and firefighters on the ground. Usually first on the scene, they will assess the wildfire, come up with a plan of attack, and then lead the airtankers in the team to the target.
To help ensure our airtankers can get to where they’re needed as quickly as possible, we have 14 support bases in strategic locations around the province. We have nine airtanker groups, each of which can move to any base – making it easy for our planes to refuel, reload and be ready for the next wildfire…
This video showcases how firefighters in Kootenay National Park in British Columbia helped to prevent a fire from crossing a natural barrier by lighting more fire. The additional heat created convection and indrafts that allowed firefighters to affect the spread of the fire, resulting in them being able to protect structures and a highway.
The video was created by Fire Information personnel working for Parks Canada, using a series of still images shot by Jon Large, who told us he “had a great viewpoint on the adjacent mountain!”
Using fire to fight fire may seem counter-intuitive, but a deliberately lit fire can be a very important tool in a firefighter’s toolkit. During the Numa Creek Wildfire in 2013, specialists burned away fuel in the wildfire’s path to slow its progress. They used a natural fire break and convective air currents to control the deliberately set fire and protect both the highway and structures below. Fire specialists rely on a thorough understanding of fire behaviour to successfully manage fires of all kinds. Where we see flames and smoke, fire specialists see prevailing winds, convective heat, in-drafts and more. This is what fire specialists saw during one operation on the Numa Creek Wildfire of 2013.
The state of Idaho has filed a lawsuit to recover the costs they incurred while suppressing the 2012 Steep Corner Fire near Orofino, Idaho. The suit claims that a timber company and its contractor did not meet U.S. Forest Service standards. It names Potlatch Land and Lumber, Potlatch Forest Holdings, Clearwater Paper Corp., Potlatch Corp., and DABCO Inc., a Kamiah-based logging contractor.
If the governor of Nebraska signs a bill approved by the legislature, the state will become a member of the Great Plains Interstate Compact, making it easier to share firefighting resources with Colorado, Wyoming and the Dakotas.
UPDATE, April 18, 2014. Gov. Dave Heineman announced that he signed the bill.
Next-generation 911
The next generation of 911 could include live video and photographs which could be sent to first responders.
On May 1, 2010, a terrorist attack in New York City’s Times Square was thwarted when street vendors noticed smoke coming from a vehicle in which a homemade bomb had failed to explode. Imagine if those street vendors could have used their cellphones to send pictures or video of the vehicle and its license plate to a 911 call center. What if the 911 center could then push that data to first responders and police to get the location from GIS and buildings visual in the photos?
“They could really capture the dynamics of the event,” said Brian Fontes, executive director of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). “That is what I call an information-rich 911 call, which will be supported in a next-generation 911 system…
Wildfire activity in British Columbia
From cbc.ca:
Fire officials are keeping a close eye on wildfires in the interior. There have been twice the average number of fires so far this year in the Kamloops Fire centre. Monday, five homes were put on evacuation alert in Bridge River near Lillooet. Nearly two dozen firefighters were sent to the area. Two fires are also being fought in the Okanagan. Kayla Pepper is an information officer with the Kamloops Fire Centre. She says it is dry and there has been a fair amount of wind throughout the Interior and Okanagan. She says there have already been 34 wildfires in the region. Pepper says so far, it’s too early to predict how active wildfires will be this year.
National Parks with web pages devoted to wildland fire
