Wildfire south of Kelowna, BC likely started by sky lantern

Peachland, British Columbia sky lantern
Wildfire near a home in Peachland, British Columbia on March 16, 2021 likely started by a sky lantern. Photo by Kevin Tameling.

A flaming object that fell from the sky ignited a fire 10 to 15 feet from a home  in Peachland, British Columbia on March 16. Firefighters responded quickly and suppressed the blaze, but after it had burned part of a homeowner’s deck and singed the siding.

Initially some residents thought it was space debris or a meteorite, but video indicates it was most likely a sky lantern.

At seven seconds in the video below several bright objects separate from a single bright object. Most of the new objects disappear but the largest is seen falling to the ground over the next 29 seconds.

This is consistent with what happens when the paper hot air balloon above a a sky lantern is ignited by the flames underneath. Depending on the altitude parts of the paper can burn completely or partially before they hit the ground, and the candle or burning oil may continue to burn as it falls, then possibly igniting any receptive fuel on the ground.

These dangerous devices use burning material to loft a small paper or plastic hot air balloon into the air. The perpetrator has no control over where it lands. Usually the fire goes out before it hits the ground, but not always. Sometimes the envelope catches fire while in flight. Numerous fires have been started on the ground by sky lanterns. Even if they don’t ignite a fire, they leave litter on the ground. Metal parts have been picked up by hay balers causing serious problems when fed to livestock

Sky lanterns are illegal in at least 30 states.

On December 31, 2019, New Years Eve, a sky lantern caused a fire in a zoo in Western Germany that killed more than 30 animals, including apes, monkeys, bats, and birds, authorities said.

In March of 2019 a sky lantern landing on the roof was the most likely cause of a fire that resulted in about $40,000 in damage to a business in Burlington, Vermont.

In October, 2018 surveillance camera footage in Goyang, Korea showed a sky lantern starting a fire in grass that spread to and destroyed a tank holding 2.66 million liters of gasoline, enough to fill 250 tank trucks.

In September, 2018 a sky lantern was suspected of causing a power outage on a railroad in Hong Kong, causing four trains to be disrupted for 25 minutes until repairs were made.

Here are a few other examples of damage from sky lanterns: a warehouse in the Philippines, an Olympic venue in Rio, 15 people injured and 4 homes destroyed in India, 4 homes and a boat dock in Michigan, a four-plex structure in California, and six million British pounds worth of damage to a recycling facility in England.

Sky Lantern poster
Volunteer Wildfire Service, South Africa.

Fifty years of wildland fire science in Canada

Canada -- fire causes, humans and lightning
Stacked bar graph showing the number of new human- and lightning-caused fire occurrences (≥2 ha) for each day of the year from 1959 to 2018. Figure adapted from Coogan et al. 2020. (From “Fifty years of wildland fire science in Canada”)

A group of nine land managers and researchers in Canada have put together a compendium highlighting the country’s accomplishments in wildland fire science over the last 50 years. Information in the 296 pages plus more than 300 references covers five key developments and contributions:

  • The creation of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System;
  • The relationships between wildland fire and weather, climate, and climate change;
  • Fire ecology;
  • Operational decision support; and,
  • Wildland fire management.

There is also a case study about the evolution of wildland fire management in Banff National Park.

Banff NP, wildfire vs Rx fires
Annual area burned by wildfire and prescribed fire in Banff National Park from 1910 to 2018. Note the long period of fire exclusion from the 1940s until the early 1980s. (From “Fifty years of wildland fire science in Canada”)

The paper discusses additional research needs, including:

  • Further evaluation of fire severity measurements and effects;
  • Efficacy of fuel management treatments; Climate change effects and mitigation;
  • Further refinement of models pertaining to fire risk analysis, fire behaviour, and fire weather; and,
  • Integration of forest management and ecological restoration with wildland fire risk reduction.
Canadian wildland fire research, by decade
Timeline of some key developments in Canadian wildland fire science by decade from the 1970s to the 2010s. FWI, Fire Weather Index System; FBP, Fire Behaviour Prediction System; NSERC, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. (From “Fifty years of wildland fire science in Canada”)

The paper is available at Canadian Science Publishing (html). A .pdf version is also online.

Authors of the referenced online document: Sean C.P. Coogan, Lori D. Daniels, Den Boychuk, Philip J. Burton, Mike D. Flannigan, Sylvie Gauthier, Victor Kafka, Jane S. Park, and B. Mike Wotton.

300 firefighters from Canada are assisting with wildfires in Washington and Oregon

September 19, 2020  |  4:24 p.m. PDT

Darron Williams welcomes Canadian firefighters from the Merritt Fire Zone, B.C. L to R: Edge, John Noel, Darron Williams, Kendra Finch, and Steffens Hunt. NWCC photo.

Approximately 300 firefighters from Canada are in Washington and Oregon assisting with the Siege of ’20.

Canadian firefighters arrive in Redmond, Oregon
Canadian firefighters arrive in Redmond, Oregon. US Forest Service photo by Andre’ Ruoti.

United States is seeking firefighting help from Canada and Australia

Incident Management Teams arrive in Victoria, Australi
File photo of Incident Management Teams from the United States arriving in Victoria, Australia. Photo posted February 11, 2020 by Emergency Management Victoria.

The United State is reaching out to Canada and Australia, hoping to get more than 130 firefighters to assist with the battling the 93 uncontained wildfires in the country.

In spite of the travel difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group is “working on a request for 55 overhead wildland fire personnel from Australia and about four to five crews from Canada”, said Kari Cobb, an Acting Public Affairs Officer at the National Interagency Fire Center. In the United States, hand crews usually consist of 20 people.

If the Australian’s accept the assignment, they will be leaving a continent where the virus has been nearly controlled, to come to a country where the opposite is true.

The international assistance has worked in both directions. In July, 2008, 44 Australian and New Zealand firefighters came to the United States to assist with fires in California. The first deployment of firefighters from Australia to the U.S. was in 2000.

Although Australia is no stranger to wildfires, the 2019-2020 season was one of the worst fire seasons on record. Major bushfires began in June, 2019, and by September were stronger, more intense, and more frequent. The fire situation continued to worsen, and by November, Australia requested international assistance to suppress the thousands of fires on the landscape.

Over a span of four months, the United States responded to the request for firefighters by providing personnel from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and National Park Service. In total, The U.S. deployed more than 200 USFS and DOI wildland fire staff to the Australian Bushfire response.