2024 Wildfire Season

[foresterab]

Part of the problem is not starting the fires....but keeping the fire contained where you want it be.

Ambition is good in everything but over achieving in Prescribed Fire Ignition shuts programs down. We're going to need a bunch of beer if we start going down the prescribed burn rabbit hole.

And likewise we can use at least one more round going through the merits/cost/differences of fires vs. managed forests and infrastructure/impact/local vs. landscape views.

But for a different look...here's Jasper Valley in 1915:
https://explore.mountainlegacy.ca/stations/show/2732

That area burnt last night.

For reference some of the Drought Code values (think of large log heavy fuels and/or deeper submuskeg) was over a value of 700 in part of the Jasper Valley. That is a multi-year, drought level value I had to read a couple of times as a value of 300 is a Very High rating and 425 is Extreme. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System | Fire Weather Maps

Last update they provided in the afternoon indicated that winds last night were 100km/hr.

I owe a few structural firefighters some beer for hanging around under those conditions.

 

[kratz]

Adding some insight to my earlier comments;

This documentary Elemental was screened last week at the 49th Natural Hazards Workshop in Bloomfield CO. This is a timely topic for our volunteers and ERU response. Ralph offers a wildfire survivors’ program and is developing a grade school education program. The film is free to view online.

Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire.
Producer: Ralph Bloemers, Oregon, USA
https://www.elementalfilm.com

 

[brihard]

Part of the problem is not starting the fires....but keeping the fire contained where you want it be.

Ambition is good in everything but over achieving in Prescribed Fire Ignition shuts programs down. We're going to need a bunch of beer if we start going down the prescribed burn rabbit hole.

And likewise we can use at least one more round going through the merits/cost/differences of fires vs. managed forests and infrastructure/impact/local vs. landscape views.

But for a different look...here's Jasper Valley in 1915:
https://explore.mountainlegacy.ca/stations/show/2732

That area burnt last night.

For reference some of the Drought Code values (think of large log heavy fuels and/or deeper submuskeg) was over a value of 700 in part of the Jasper Valley. That is a multi-year, drought level value I had to read a couple of times as a value of 300 is a Very High rating and 425 is Extreme. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System | Fire Weather Maps

Last update they provided in the afternoon indicated that winds last night were 100km/hr.

I owe a few structural firefighters some beer for hanging around under those conditions.

Thanks again for the insight you keep bringing to this.

This has gotta be absolutely awful for you being in your line of work. How are you holding up?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Easy weapon to wage environmental warfare with. We are in multiple domains of war right now (information, economic, cyber)… why wouldn’t an adversary also seek to destroy natural resources while draining financial resources also? Lots of ways to do this.. arson, contaminating waterways with invasive species, fires… pine beetle infestations. Maybe it’s time to think outside the box…

I’ll remove my tinfoil hat and show myself to the door now… wait, who am I kidding, the hat stays on!

I don't see the Pine Beetle as "weaponized", but it's effect may certainly be. As the saying goes "Don't let a crisis go to waste"

 

[MilEME09]

I don't see the Pine Beetle as "weaponized", but it's effect may certainly be. As the saying goes "Don't let a crisis go to waste"

Pine beetle has been spreading because winter is warmer, you need -30 for atleast a week to start killing larva

 

[daftandbarmy]

Pine beetle has been spreading because winter is warmer, you need -30 for at least a week in October to start killing larva

As I understand it the bugs develop their own anti-freeze and burrow deeper into the trees unless a sudden, early, deep cold snap kills them off.

This hasn't happened AFAIK since the mid-90s, which is a nice correlation with the rise of the beetle issue.

 

[QV]

Interesting to note the issue of the pine beetle infestation and extreme fire risk was raised in parliament back in 2017... and nothing of substance seems to have been done in the park to manage the risk to the townsite.

 

[Remius]

Interesting to note the issue of the pine beetle infestation and extreme fire risk was raised in parliament back in 2017... and nothing of substance seems to have been done in the park to manage the risk to the townsite.

Like everything else in government. Things get kicked down the road because of 4 year election cycles at every level of government.

It doesn’t become urgent until it does.

 

[MilEME09]

Like everything else in government. Things get kicked down the road because of 4 year election cycles at every level of government.

It doesn’t become urgent until it does.

AB Gov is going to take a lot of heat in the near term for all the cuts to wildfire related services such us closing watch towers, cutting the repel teams etc.

I absolutely grinds my gears people are suggesting the RCAF needs water bomber squadrons, its simply making a provincial problem a federal responsibility. We need to push back on provinces that do not want to take their responsibilities seriously, its also why i agree with the cost of DOMOPS to the provinces, not DND when the CAF is called out. Maybe they would spend more on prevention if they had to pay for our response.

 

[Navy_Pete]

AB Gov is going to take a lot of heat in the near term for all the cuts to wildfire related services such us closing watch towers, cutting the repel teams etc.

I absolutely grinds my gears people are suggesting the RCAF needs water bomber squadrons, its simply making a provincial problem a federal responsibility. We need to push back on provinces that do not want to take their responsibilities seriously, its also why i agree with the cost of DOMOPS to the provinces, not DND when the CAF is called out. Maybe they would spend more on prevention if they had to pay for our response.

There are some equipment being trialed in other countries that lets you load up water in smaller payloads into any rear ramp loading helo or plane to do air drops (from a higher altitude, so safer for pilots and crews). It's gotten certified by USAF for cargo loading and tested in the EU for the air drop patterns, but seems like some gate keeping on different orgs has stopped further work.

Doesn't replace the water bombers, but if you wanted to support DOMOPS with existing military and commercial planes and helos that seems like an easy way to bring something to the table without getting specialized equipment. or needing to modifiy anything We did some research on a food safe hydrogel additive (that CN is now using this year to coat their tracks to prevent fires starting from sparking) that could make the wetting more persistent (and could be tuned to different viscosities to see if sticking it to the tree tops helps slow the spread from embers)

The Guardian | Caylym

Currently that entire capability is not in the CAF requirements at all, so no interest from DAR (which is fair), but bit surprised not being looked at by the federal and provincial response side of things as a way to surge and maybe do something like put down fire breaks to contain the spread..

 

[foresterab]

As I understand it the bugs develop their own anti-freeze and burrow deeper into the trees unless a sudden, early, deep cold snap kills them off.

This hasn't happened AFAIK since the mid-90s, which is a nice correlation with the rise of the beetle issue.

Mountain Pine beetle actually naturally produce a glycol like anti-freeze that slowly builds up in their system and the flushes out. So at peak winter it's more like extended -40 weather....if you're walking through the forest hearing the trees snap open in the cold type conditions. Now -20 in September can also be effective especially if it's been warm then crash down cold sharply.

Unfortunately for Jasper National Park the two years...and that's all it took...did not get the weather conditions. Since that inflight - but the damage was done - there has been good killing days and significant drops in the amount of beetles in Alberta. But even 98% mortality rates have to be considered depending on how many million beetles are there.

Add in drought. If a couple of beetles attack a tree and it's in good condition it is able to repel them (you'll see the beetles trapped in the sap). But start adding hundreds...and it's a nasty beetle because when a tree is attacked the beetles release a pheromone indicating "come here" to other beetles....and the tree can't cope. If it's moisture stressed due to summer heat conditions and/or drought....it's now less able to respond. And once the tree has been swarmed the beetles change their pheromone to say "full up and hit the next one" so they spread out the attacks.

Lastly the beetles are exposed during flight for a period of days to couple of weeks....other than that they're under the bark of the tree so you can't spray like you can for Spruce Budworm. You would have to manually inject an insecticide into each individual tree....annually...to protect them.

Mountain Pine beetle are also selective on what size and types of trees they attack. They really like thick bark pines like Western White Pine (thicker back = greater survival rates) and will focus on larger trees (again due to thicker bark) vs. immature seedlings. When you get the massive spread years....we're talking "grey clouds of beetles" or tracking them via air traffic radar...then they will go after all the pine and sometimes try other species.

 

[foresterab]

AB Gov is going to take a lot of heat in the near term for all the cuts to wildfire related services such us closing watch towers, cutting the repel teams etc.

I absolutely grinds my gears people are suggesting the RCAF needs water bomber squadrons, its simply making a provincial problem a federal responsibility. We need to push back on provinces that do not want to take their responsibilities seriously, its also why i agree with the cost of DOMOPS to the provinces, not DND when the CAF is called out. Maybe they would spend more on prevention if they had to pay for our response.

It's a tricky one. Yes Jasper Municipality is part of Alberta. But the park and management of the park - including all fire suppression - is done by Parks Canada. Same deal with Banff, Waterton, and Wood Buffalo National Parks. DND lands are separate agreements again. So it wouldn't matter if I had every resource available...it's still Parks Canada's call to ask for assistance.

There are resource sharing agreements and Parks Canada is treated by CIFFC as basically a separate province. They pull resources from around Canada to form Incident Management Teams (I believe they just had a IMT2 in BC before all this and handed off to Australia) and were working on several fires within Jasper when the fires broke out.

Alberta had already maxed out on capacity and was importing resources prior to this event from Ontario (~200), New Brunswick (~20), Nova Scotia (~20) and Australia/New Zealand (~50). Mexico showed up yesterday. By numbers that might not seem like much but for some of those jurisdictions that is a significant portion of their entire department showing up. And anyone international takes significant time to mobilize.

But Alberta is not the only show in town....NFLD still has fires, BC picked up sharply, NWT is still active and the ridge of heat that had baked Alberta the previous 10 days has shifted to SK and they've had a big jump in lightning starts as a result. So it's a national competition for resources (via CIFFC) and the USA is also at similar capacity constraints.

 

[foresterab]

There are some equipment being trialed in other countries that lets you load up water in smaller payloads into any rear ramp loading helo or plane to do air drops (from a higher altitude, so safer for pilots and crews). It's gotten certified by USAF for cargo loading and tested in the EU for the air drop patterns, but seems like some gate keeping on different orgs has stopped further work.

Doesn't replace the water bombers, but if you wanted to support DOMOPS with existing military and commercial planes and helos that seems like an easy way to bring something to the table without getting specialized equipment. or needing to modifiy anything We did some research on a food safe hydrogel additive (that CN is now using this year to coat their tracks to prevent fires starting from sparking) that could make the wetting more persistent (and could be tuned to different viscosities to see if sticking it to the tree tops helps slow the spread from embers)

The Guardian | Caylym

Currently that entire capability is not in the CAF requirements at all, so no interest from DAR (which is fair), but bit surprised not being looked at by the federal and provincial response side of things as a way to surge and maybe do something like put down fire breaks to contain the spread..

The US has two national guard squadrons who cross train with the MAFFF modular retardant tanks for the C-130's. But while I love the idea of a surge capacity it is also very different tactical flying that deliveries and very high stress on air frames. Frankly...I don't think the RCAF can afford the wear and tear with the current fleet to even entertain the idea unless new air frames were coming in and dedicated to it.

The USFS is using the Sherpa's for smoke jumpers but they're not real happy with them as they carry less and few jumpers than the old DC-3's they replaced. But those folks not just jump into the fires but are also re-supplied via parachute due to some areas in the US not allowing helicopter use...not aware of any such areas in Canada and hence we use helicopters a lot.

Even the difference bucketing with a 212 and a long line vs. a short line is remarkable on how close you can get to the tree tops. But as you go to larger and larger helicopters the other problem is the down wash from the blades so you need a line to lower the bucket closer rather than moving the machine closer to avoid fanning up the fire. And depending on the fire/fuel...do I need a slug of water to break through canopy or a spread of water for fuels like grass.

Gels, retardants, foam and paints have been used in many different areas and do get used but there's the ongoing maintenance side. Had not seen the CN use of the gel locally yet but also doesn't surprise me especially if they are doing repair work/grinding. There were gel trials going on last year for forest fire conditions but haven't heard all the results yet.

 

[QV]

AB Gov is going to take a lot of heat in the near term for all the cuts to wildfire related services such us closing watch towers, cutting the repel teams etc.

But Alberta increased funding for 2024... whether they closed towers or cut repel teams (which might be just re-structuring) they increased the funds available to support fighting wildfires.

Alberta increases wildfire budget ahead of what’s expected to be difficult 2024 season | Globalnews.ca

Alberta Wildfire's base budget has been boosted and there's a larger emergency contingency fund to tap into, ahead of what is expected to be another challenging fire season.

globalnews.ca

The 2024 Alberta budget includes an additional $151 million over the next three years for the base budget of dealing with and preventing wildfires in the province, ahead of what is expected to be another challenging fire season.

Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen said that means, for 2024, an additional $55 million into the operational expenditures of dealing with wildfires.

“Last year about $100.4 million was budgeted and this year, we’ve budgeted for $155.4 million,” he said Friday at a news conference in Grande Prairie.

There’s also a $2-billion contingency fund in the provincial budget — up half a billion from 2023 — which the minister said will be tapped into when fires actually break out.

 

[kratz]

Four pages discussing the fires in BC, the evacuation of 25K people from the Jasper wildfire, but no mention of the 10K impacted by the wildfire in Labrador City.

• CBC News (2024, July 20)
• Canadian Red Cross (n.d.)

 

[foresterab]

Four pages discussing the fires in BC, the evacuation of 25K people from the Jasper wildfire, but no mention of the 10K impacted by the wildfire in Labrador City.

• CBC News (2024, July 20)
• Canadian Red Cross (n.d.)

Not much in the media either about the northern AB communities evacuated. Seems like every 4'ish hours away from the major Canadian cities the cover drops in half...so the Okanogan gets coverage via Vancouver but Prince George is right out...and nobody lives north of there right?

Not knocking BC...see the same deal in AB and ON. Remote, tough access fires get a fraction of the coverage that ones beside paved highways do.

 

[GK .Dundas]

About 20 odd years ago the Good Idea Fairy struck at the CBC . It was decided to shut down most of the small regional ENG teams and consolidate them at major hubs.
Every thing east of Ottawa to Newfoundland would be covered by Montreal. Everything west of that to roughly Brandon Mb . would be covered by Toronto.Everything west of Brandon to the coast would be covered by Vancouver.
Listed roughly three years and they restored almost all the various locally produced News units....almost
And then about 8 or so years Global tried it as well, with pretty much the same results.

 

[Cloud Cover]

.

 

[foresterab]

Out of curiosity, what is the combined budget of BC, AB and the Feds to deal with maintaining the forests in a reasonable fire prevention state resulting from the devastating and sustained (for 20 years) appearance of the mountain pine beetle.

It must be many tens of billions, right?After all, it is a known, serious clear and present safety danger to communities and a vital natural resource that underpins a big part of the economy. There must be a heap of laws, regulations, duties, obligations and coercive requirements to ensure nothing serious might arise out of the dry death of billions of combustible trees surround villages, towns, cities, vital infrastructure, national parks etc. Surely our wizards of logic in the various legislatures and those who finance them have been all over mitigating this problem. Right?

From the Feds: Between the two links below I make it over $400 million since 2002.

Protecting Canada’s Forests From the Mountain Pine Beetle - Canada.ca

The Honourable Seamus O’Regan, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, today announced federal funding of $68.4 million over three years to help control, research and mitigate the impacts of the mountain pine beetle on Canada’s forests.

www.canada.ca

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/f...ountain_pine_beetle_summary_of_investment.pdf

From BC:
Since 2001 BC has committed $917 Million.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/forestry/forest-health/mountain-pine-beetle/mountain_pine_beetle_summary_of_investment.pdf

From AB:
As of 2020 the Alberta government had spent approximately $456 Million in MPB control work. https://www.ccfm.org/wp-content/upl...f-Mountain-Pine-Beetle-across-Canada-2017.pdf

For context the value of pine forests is placed at 11 Billion dollars in Alberta. https://centralalbertaonline.com/ar...e-populations-down-94-percent-from-2019....or the government has spent 5% of the value on just control.

From Saskatchewan since 2011 - 8.6 million

https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2022/september/20/saskatchewan-and-alberta-renew-partnership-in-mountain-pine-beetle-fight

There has been more...and more spent in the 1980's in National Parks, BC and Alberta. But it's also tough to split it all out as some of the provincial monies spent were due to Federal funds received.



All the wildfire prevention and fuel management stuff is usually reported under different budgets again so again tough to tease out.
Even knowing roughly where to look I can't pull the numbers fast.