A couple points about that fire we can all learn from.

We are hearing that the radiant heat from the super-hot fire is what is igniting the houses. The radiant heat from the advancing flame front is NOT what is igniting a lot of the houses on fire.

In some of the videos, if you watch closely, you will see foliage next to houses igniting first. The main foliage that is igniting is JUNIPER. The juniper then burns with extreme intensity that it ignites the home. Once the first home is fully engulfed, then adjacent homes do get going by radiant heat.

My advice- If you have JUNIPER in your yard… REMOVE IT.. Plant some sort of deciduous foliage (lilacs etc) that are a lot less flammable. FireSmart Guides to Landscaping are available. They describe different plants by name and ranking as far as if they are non-flammable all the way up to extremely flammable.

Follow the fireSmart link below and do the simple things that cost nothing but a bit of sweat equity. Clean your gutters, rake dead leaves away from your house, prune any conifer trees in your yards up to a height of 6 foot (that should be your lowest limb), make sure your woodpile is not against the house in the carport.

More great information can be found at: http://bcwildfire.ca/Prevention/firesmart.htm

If you take the proper steps to help FireSmart your own property, its not a guarantee, but does increase your chances of your home surviving a wildfire like this. There are MANY instances of single homes within a subdivision, where the home survived, yet the rest of the subdivision was destroyed.

While I am on a roll, I was asked yesterday by someone, “Why does Northern BC and Alberta burn in May?” Slave Lake (450 homes lost occurred within 2 weeks of the Fort Mac fire, but back in 2011). The answer is, “The Spring Dip”.. This is a phenomena that occurs each spring once the snow leaves, all the dry accumulations are still on the ground AND most foliage (trees and shrubs) are at their lowest foliar moisture content of the year (very little moisture in the needles and stems).

Last edited by RickF; 05/05/16.
Anybody who seriously concerns themselves with the adequacy of a Big 7mm for anything we hunt here short of brown bear, is a dufus. They are mostly making shidt up. Crunch! Nite-nite!

Stolen from an erudite CF member.