Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is Canada pouring enough resources into the wildfires in Alberta?

maybe they are. but it appears more resources are needed. in the US national guard even military resources such as the Marines are sometimes brought to bear.

maybe it's under control, and the media is hyping it, i don't know.

it just seems like things are a bit chaotic, and surely more resources wouldn't hurt.

but, it is Canada, and not the US.

Forest fires need to be outlawed.

Canada is pretty good at putting them out. The have some great tanker aircraft. I have watched them work. This is just one hot fire in dry fuel and it is moving to fast to get ahead.

Men on the ground can do very little with a fire of this magnitude and are best utilized for getting folks out of fire path. That fire is capable of jumping nearly any fire line that could be bulldozed in a short time.

Alaska has many folks for fighting wildfires but we have our own areas to protect at this time.

Short of making it rain for two weeks or stopping the wind from blowing, I don't get the impression there's much more anyone could do. Conditions are extremely dry and windy.

The fire jumped a 1km wide river on Friday.

probably so. it's unfortunate that the wind direction allowed the firestorm to head straight toward the town, as reported on the news.

noone could have forseen such a catastrophic event. the good news is very few if any lives have been reported as being lost. and that is good.

to be able to successfully evacuate 80-90,000 people is no small feat. so i'm not belittling the wildfire response. alberta seems to be bearing the brunt of the defensive effort with support from the other provinces.

it takes a lot of resources to confine such a conflagration. this one will be a case-study, and talked about long into the future, with little doubt.

Fires like that are beyond anyone's firefighting abilities. They managed to keep it out of the bulk of the town itself.
They have 32,000 homes registered with the Red Cross as of today, they figure less than 2000 were burnt. The day it happened, it ran from the spot fire they were fighting, where it had jumped a 600yd wide river, to the edge of the town, in 46 min according to one of the firefighters on that spot fire. When it moves that quick, you have no chance of stopping it. The timber up there was dry last year, no snow to melt and dampen everything, and an early spring with hot, dry weather and some wind to push it, that fire was just a time bomb waiting to go off. Northwestern States were in the same boat last year,seems to me there were 3-4 fires that hit 250,000 acres + thru Wash, Idaho and Montana.
Heck, Putin even volunteered to send their water bombers to Ft Mac, the feds had the offer last week, haven't answered it yet. And they wouldn't do any good anyhow, the leading edge of it is up over 1000F, I seem to remember them talking as high as 3000F, planes can't get close enough to do any good directly on it or anywhere close to it.

Evenin' Mate,

Your sig reads Calgary, One of my old haunts. Lived in Exshaw for years.

I'm wondering what the Fire Danger situation is further South, in the Rockies, ....say from Jasper down to the Crowsnest,....and West up towards L. Louise,....over to Golden.

Best regards,

GTC

Seems like the best option is to let it burn, as it was designed to be so. Wildfire is a good thing overall for the ecosystem. Just hope they can keep the people safe.

Evening,
Up till this evening the fire index Province wide was EXTREME. There is a fire ban across the province. As well there is a ban on recreational use of ATV's.
It has been incredibly dry the past year plus.

The Alberta govt dropped the ball hugely. They cut 400 million from the fire budget this year and we are paying a huge price for their lack of planning. I'm not going to go into the details but having lived in Canada Crossfireoops, I am sure you know who the NDP are....
Alberta mistakenly elected them to a Majority government a year ago May. Damn near to the day this fire was discovered.
Burningman: The Canadian Forces are actively involved. They are providing air support with choppers, lifting fire fighters in and supplies. Additionally they are providing over-watch on the convoys. The SAR assets are doing just that, search and rescue.
Ground troops may still be called in, they are ready and I might add very willing to assist. Having served as a CF Medic I know our military will respond when requested, as they have many times in the past. It is a time honoured callout here to help in time of disaster.
There will be a day to hang our govt out to dry but for now Canadians and Albertans are doing what needs to be done.

Thanks, troutfly.

Troubling to hear that Alberta's suffering not only wildfire, put a plague of .gov idiocy, as well. It would START to make sense, if Fire budgets were cut after a coupla-three years of record rain,... doing it THIS year smacks of election promise stupidity. No flame, in a, " Whose
.gov fire policies are the dumbest", I guarantee ya' we'd be a photo finish by a nose.

We're praying for rain, hold the lightning, if you please.

GTC

Morning GTC,

It wasn't even a misguided election promise, just pure ignorance and a serving of stupidity that led to the cuts.
Virtually everything they cut in the Provincial Budget had to due with F&W, Forestry and Agriculture. On top of their hatered of all thing Oil and Gas.
They are a one term show at least.

Thanks to all for the prayers and thoughts.
Jeff

it is easy for residents of the US to forget that the population of Canada is less than that of California. it stands to reason that they just have less resources to call on.
in addition to that , unless you have been if front of a wildfire you cannot understand the mindlessness of the force. all you can really do is react because it has no rule book that it goes by.
praying for you Alberta resident's.

This, it doesn't take much up top to realize when a fire jumps a 1KM wide fire break, the only thing to stop it is mother nature.

Yep, many don't realize that embers fly WAY down wind (usually in front of) the fire. I've seen them ignite a mile out, in high winds.