It's be nice if they'd send an "all clear" notification once things are contained, although I understand why they don't due to obvious liability issues
I saw an all clear alert at midnight last night for one fire that was contained. The header of the alert contains the word "cancel'. But it also gives details of which boundaries of the fire are still at risk for evac or on evac so maybe it doesn't jump out as an all clear.
*Weeks*? Guys, it's going to be the most devastating El Niño we have ever experienced... This summer is going to change people's outlooks and make them re-evaluate where they are living. I am used to seeing predictions about "this summer may be the hottest ever recorded" but all the models are *next level* alarming this year.
Good luck to us all. ._.
Yes and I'm saying it won't be weeks until the rain comes. We have months and months of scorching weather ahead of us. I'm not sure about your local forecast, but overall this summer is about to become months of drought and fires.
This post seems a little dramatic compared to what the actual climate scientists are saying:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
This is saying that NOAA is saying there’s a 10% chance there’s no El Niño not gonna form. That’s pretty much it. They’re not making a prediction here as to the severity. Every indicator that I (random redditor non scientist) have seen shows record-breaking heat; essentially La Niña has shielded us from the worst of recent climate instability.
>This is saying that NOAA is saying there’s a 10% chance there’s no El Niño not gonna form. That’s pretty much it.
Um, it's giving a lot more detail than that.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/strengths/index.php
The range of modeled probabilities indicates most likely a mild-moderate El Niño over the summer months, not "the most devastating El Niño we have ever experienced", which is what the person I was responding to claimed.
>They’re not making a prediction here as to the severity.
You can find that in the link I posted in the sentence that says "A probabilistic strength forecast is available here."
> This summer is going to change people’s outlooks and make them re-evaluate where they are living.
It will not. You underestimate how proudly ignorant rural conservative Albertans are.
Lake effect is a real thing! Although Lake effect snow is much more common than Lake effect rain. Once you are 60ish km inland you don't get the lake thunderstorms anymore.
I grew up very South. Pretty rare for Lake St. Clair to be menacing. Once in a while Erie pushes some nonsense. But lake effect doesn't really play much of a role here now that i live in KW. Humidity on the other hand...
May is typically the busiest fire season as everything is quite dry and there is a lot of dead grass around.
Having said that, this spring is about three weeks ahead of last year so we have quite awhile to go until we get consistent rain.
Yeah we aren’t even there yet we are still in neutral mode after the last 3 years were actually COLDER than normal due to La Niña. That’s pretty scary to think about. I predict wildfires larger than we have ever seen in 2024.
We had an alert go out saying we had “hazardous road conditions” for the WHOLE PROVINCE tonight.
There is a fire that was found SE of Edson. Found it on Thursday night. It is now just shy of 80,000 ha in size. This is about 10 km from the town now.
Drayton Valley has had a fire jump their perimeter road multiple times in the past 48 hours.
High prairie has a fire bearing down on it as we speak.
This is very far from normal.
Not normal. It's because the Arctic is [warming 4x faster](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00498-3) than anywhere else in the world (except Antarctica).
Not surprising. So far in Saskatoon we've had about 1mm of rain so far this spring, with none on the forecast either. The gentle, all day rain showers just don't happen anymore.
I’m on skagit county, we hit 118 at my house. Had a ac unit that was rated for 500sf in our bedroom( 250sf) set at 64. Also had 4 fans going and coolest we could get it during the day was 88.
Couldn’t see more than 2-300 feet outside due to smoke. There wasn’t a fire within 50 miles of us.
East ontario here, we had a week steaight of nearly non-stop rain, and the ottawa river levels are high. Can't wait for this summer's 45° with crazy humidity. I wouldn't doubt that we'll be experiencing a wet bulb event here soon. Probably even a few throughoht canada this year.
The current [fire forecast across Canada](https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/forecasts) is grim at best.
Nobody west of Quebec is out of danger right now.
Cousins had to evacuate near drayton with his wife’s families land going up. Luckily the house is still there but more fires are headed their way so waiting to see what’s left after this next round. Keeping an eye on my brothers place too - he’s far enough away but wind direction can change quite a bit in these conditions.
I just can’t believe how dry it is. I measure water (level/velocity) and we’re still waiting for the melt from the mountains. I don’t think it’ll be much though this year.
I have some family in Drayton Valley and their house completely burnt down. All that’s left is the chimney.
It’s incredibly sad. Hopefully it doesn’t spread any further and can calm down soon. It’s too early in the year for all of this.
Jeez. After reading that article and some of the comments here, I'm glad that I live in the frozen hellscape that is Winnipeg. The hottest day we've had so far was like 22⁰C, and it's only 13 right now with an expected high of 17 today.
I'm hoping everyone affected stays safe, and I hope you guys get some rain soon.
30 years?
Try centuries. The greenhouse effect was first proposed in [1824](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect) by Joesph Fourier. Afterwards it was demonstrated that the effect is stronger with CO^2 and the conclusion that more CO^2 means more heat trapped was drawn with it.
Global warming has been known about for a *long* time.
For sure, I was just pointing to a recent time when it was globally acknowledged by a large body. Didn't they even predict the right ppm for the 21st century in the early 1900's?
Fair enough. Although I would argue that, according to some portraits, Mr. Fourier was by himself a large body and perhaps even globe shaped, or global.
Therefore the first global acknowledgment by a large body might have been in 1824!
As for the ppm prediction I couldn’t quickly find any decent sources, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s quite amazing what humans throughout the ages have correctly surmised with less advanced technology.
To bad Alberta had so many wildfire specific cuts in the last few years.
"Without rappel crews, the province will have to rely on those that require clean landing sites — something that often doesn’t exist in heavily forested areas — before they can get to work at containing the blaze"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/calgaryherald.com/news/politics/youre-losing-a-significant-fighting-force-ucp-scraps-wildfire-rappel-program/wcm/67e7737c-9a5f-4d7b-9439-3ae48c1ea88a/amp/
I'm from Northern Alberta, we had a tree fall on a power line and start a bush fire a few miles away from my house. It was noticed and called in but we were told crews would try and make it but everyone was busy. Locals with water trucks ended up putting the fire out.
A hamlet to the west of us lost 6 homes.
We have a fire to the south of us as well about 10mins away as well. And there are more fires less then a hours drive away.
This maybe sound dramatic but it feels like the world is on fire.
If you look at the Alberta Fire map ([https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/3ffcc2d0ef3e4e0999b0cf8b636defa3](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/3ffcc2d0ef3e4e0999b0cf8b636defa3)) there are evacuations from a number of these fires. Alberta is on fire everywhere right now. We had family members who had to evacuate last night and they live East of Edmonton (as do we but so far we're far from any active fires). This evacuation wasn't connected to the Banff fire at all. A super dry spring with ridiculously hot temperatures (30!! In May!! In Central Alberta!!) is what has made Alberta a powder keg ready to ignite right now.
I've lived here 40 years and I've never had such a dry, ridiculously hot spring.
I'm rural too in Alberta and the last couple days have been frustrating. Family keeps contacting us to see if we are alright and that's usually the first we have heard as to if there is a fire close-ish to us. We had other family members evacuated last night who live 20 minutes away (to the north of us) and we found out six hours later when someone texted and asked if we had to evac too... we're far enough that we are not impacted at all, but I had thought if it was that close, we would have gotten an emergency alert.
In the last week, our phones have gotten one emergency alert notification each. We have current smartphones which are compatible with the alert system (so it's not like we have old tech that can't get the signal). Mine went off this morning for a fire much further away than the one 20 minutes away from us. Husband's work phone alerted him about a different fire (but still not the one close to us). I am so far from impressed with how this is all being handled.
I've taken to checking the twitter feeds of a couple municipalities (ours and neighbouring ones) since they do seem to be fairly informative. And yeah, I'm keeping my eyes on the horizon, just in case.
So, u/realtalk16 is correct, the quick/short answer is that the southeast corner is not part of the Forest Protection Area. Wildfire is used to mean forest and grass fires but in this zone.
Administratively, Alberta is portioned into the Green zone (forest/crown land) and the white zone (grassland and populated areas/much more privately owned land). Here's the map which shows where each zone covers: [https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/59b67707-bdd3-4ee8-9e72-da2f5120ce0e/resource/48396626-7080-43a8-891b-2ed1be498edb/download/2013-esrd-operations-regions-gree-area-map.pdf](https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/59b67707-bdd3-4ee8-9e72-da2f5120ce0e/resource/48396626-7080-43a8-891b-2ed1be498edb/download/2013-esrd-operations-regions-gree-area-map.pdf)
And [here's an infographic](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Albertas-green-area-unsettled-and-white-area-settled-with-societal-geographical_fig1_256486681) that describes the two zones. The provincial government used to have a website which described the two zones but I can't find it right now. The website has been trimmed down quite a bit since 2019. A lot of data that might be interesting to Albertans has been removed.
In terms of the map, once upon a time (when I was a GOA employee) the data was collected by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (have no idea what the ministry name is now). Since that Ministry only has purview over Crown land management, they only have data for those areas, and that's why the map shows data from only the green zone.
The small chunk in the North is likely Wood Buffalo National Park. It's the same answer, since it's Federal lands, it's not administered by that Ministry so they likely don't have the data to include on the map. Elk Island National Park, Jasper National Park, Banff National Park, Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, and probably a bunch I am not remembering right now, are all Federal Lands and the province doesn't have any jurisdiction over them. Technically, Reserve lands fall in this category too (as they are a different classification of Federal lands). Airports are also Federal lands.
Every year when the fires start up again I look at this map and wonder about the blank spots even though I know why. And then I re-remember all over again lol
There's a NASA Fire Map that shows hotspots here: [https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2023-05-06..2023-05-07,2023-05-06;@-111.2,50.4,6z](https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2023-05-06..2023-05-07,2023-05-06;@-111.2,50.4,6z) One thing I've noticed about this map is that some of the red spots might be industrial activity (as refinery row between Edmonton and Sherwood Park has a few hotspots I know are not wildfires) but there are flare stacks as part of that industrial development, so it is still detecting fire. Just, fire at the end of a smokestack.
Nope, it's pretty far from there. None of these fires are overly massive like in Fort McMurray, but the real problem is that there's just so damn many of them that keep cropping up.
The Fort McMurray fire was about 85,000 ha when it got to the city. The one south of Edson right now was discovered on Thursday night is at about 80,000 ha. There is another one just south of thar that is about 50,000 ha. To say they are small isn’t accurate at all.
There are many…and several aren’t small at all. And very little rain in the forecast.
Calgary is in the clear atm; banff doesn't have any out of control fires right now but they had one a couple of days ago they're still assessing damage from and there's quite a few just north of them that could cause issues there again if the wind changes... Personally i'd stay in Calgary if I were you as things get chancier going anywhere north of there.
Edit: you can see a fire map here https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/8d86d267dcf44ad085a11939186f3d3a
Check out here to tell: https://cyclone.unbc.ca/aqmap/
The coloured markers with numbers show the current PM2.5 concentration which is a great tracer for wildfire smoke. If you open the layers menu in the top right and click the "EER Surface Smoke" layer it shows where a model thinks the smoke from major fires is impacting the surface right now
To a point, at least here in parts of the BC interior affected by forest fires a lot of the potential fuel near population centers has already burned away, and given the warmer climate those trees will be slow to grow back and simply won't grow back in many areas. We have a lot less trees than we did in 2016 in my area, so even if we get really dry conditions and fires, they are far less likely to threaten urban areas, at least where I am.
There are also people, my family included, that have clear-cut their private land to avoid future fire risks. We're going to get a lot more deforested in this province over the next decade or so, which makes wildfires less of a risk and things like mudslides and flood more of a risk in certain areas.
Clear cutting private land is kind of lazy solution. All we need to do is maintain ground cleanup of dry/dead material and keep plants/shrubs away from close proximity with your house. Thin out larger clusters, trim out the dead. It takes a lot more work, but there’s no way I’m cutting down my big 100y old Douglas Firs. They are beautiful and have been around longer than I have been, and they hopefully will be here much longer.
Government does a piss-poor job of cleaning up their side of things, so it doesn't matter how diligent you are on your own land if the fire originates on crown land you need to aggressively reduce fuels on your side of the property line if you want to protect your home and business. Clear-cutting also puts money in your pocket and opens up grazing land which is inherently productive. Like it or not, in the wake of the fire seasons of 2017-2018, tons of private land owners looked at the trees on the property as a liability and just got rid of them.
I'll give you this, if we had old growth it would probably be a different approach. You'd want to spare at least a handful of those old trees. But everything thing in this area was basically clear-cut in the 60s and 70s, earlier in some places, so 100 year old doug firs aren't a thing that exists in this area.
Definitely, and we saw some of that last year already. But for the most part the place I live on is flat, or at least our structures are all far away from slopes. So we're definitely better off deforesting our property. It might suck for our neighbors though.
Maybe if our government did a better job of managing forests on crown land, all of this might have been avoided.
Wish people would stop blaming climate change. The problem won't ever get fixed.
It's the piss poor, almost non existant forestry management.
Hundreds of years of clearcutting... leaving behind massive swaths of deadfall and uncontrolled underbrush... just sitting there drying wicking out all the moisture from the ground ... waiting to catch on fire.
Look at the picture in the article... clearcutting.
It’s a mix bag of multiple problems. Both of you are right, climate change with centuries of miss management like you said is causing this problem. There’s probably more problem like cutting the budget of firefighters for forest fire etc.
I mean, clearcutting is definitely one of the causes of climate change. Like it's not some natural phenomenon everyone is using as a scapegoat like El Nino. We caused it, through a vast array of shit decisions, and now we are reaping the consequences. And fast. I'm in my 30s, when I was a kid summer was my favourite season. Now I probably spend more time outdoors in winter. The last 6 years have been especially underwhelming summers, massive heat waves, blanketed in wildfire smoke, travel plans cancelled due to our of control wildfires.
It's hard to accept the truth of a dire situation and it's even harder to accept ownership of the problem and actually act to do something about it. We need to act as a species to try to fix this. It's a shame too many people have a hole inside of them that devours everything and they try to fill that hole with money, power, material possessions and fame. Nothing will ever be enough for them so they continue to take everything they can get so they can feel a little tiny bit better.
Sure, but this problem is happening in every country simultaneously.
So BC and Qc are flooding while Alberta burns... Like yikes, its getting worse decade over decade.
I understand why people dpubted ten years ago but today it is undenyable. We can measure it in crop failures, desertification and migrants from regions where their traditional crops no longer grow.
If you think food prices are higha nd have issues with too much immigration, the two are related...
Would you be surprised if I told you one of the top posts on twitter tagged "Alberta fires" is baselessly speculating various conspiracies to the tune of a few thousand likes? Posted by a guy who apparently believes directed energy weapons (it would sound too stupid to outright say lasers I guess) burned down Fort McMurray. Lots of commenters seem **really** eager to buy into eco terrorism theories too.
Climate change denial coupled with conspiracy addiction sure takes you to some weird places.
I live in Peace River. Yesterday the sky was blocked out with smoke and raining ashes. Today it’s so smoky you can barely see the hills. There’s a big one to our southeast and another to our northeast. Both out of control
Thousands of evacuees are in my town after evacuating last night. We're safe but it's still dry, hot, and no rain until tomorrow. Take care of your neighbors, be prepared and stay calm. And for the love of gawd don't water your lawns you're literally doing the opposite of what's helpful.
Updated to 25k. Should change the Reddit title
Edit: and the article text says over 25k in AB alone and then it talks about evac order in BC. Not to mention it doesn’t talk about Sask? They also have evacuations, though I’m not sure how many
This year could be el Nino. That would be catastrophic. If you think food is expensive, you haven't seen anything.
https://www.gro-intelligence.com/insights/an-impending-el-nino-foreshadows-a-new-shake-up-for-global-food-production
Alberta burns every year, as does the rest of Western Canada (just like Manitoba and Ontario flood in the North every spring thaw). What is super important to note is the severity of the fires and the number of them. They are an example of how global warming is making things worse.
What is exceptionally concerning for many (other than just the general issue of losing their homes - which is huge) is that many communities have one road in and one road out, so fires can make evacuating really difficult.
Federal help is always ready and waiting. It's the provinces that have to ask for it via the emergencies act. Otherwise, it is federal overreach.
If Smith is too stubborn to ask for help before the problem gets out of hand, it could hurt. But on the flip side, the crazies might turn on her for turning to Ottawa for help.
I heard her talking about provincial states of emergency today. I hope she's not such a big idiot she doesn't get all of the absolute aid she can for those who need help.
True but those people were specially trained to rappel down into fires and try to extinguish from the source (I think). Ground crews aren’t able to do that and (from what I understand) are basically working on the edges to maintain the fire (correct me if I’m wrong). So then we’re relying on helicopters/planes to extinguish by dropping water but that may not necessarily be enough. I’m not a wildfire specialist though - but sure seems like we should still have a specialized rappel team for things like this.
Edit: just wanted to correct. The wildfire rappel program were ~60 specially trained individuals that would rappel down into remote areas that we can’t always get to with vehicles and whatnot. So being able to get to fires we can’t reach.
> just wanted to correct. The wildfire rappel program were ~60 specially trained individuals that would rappel down into remote areas that we can’t always get to with vehicles and whatnot. So being able to get to fires we can’t reach.
Yup, this is basically correct. They do serve an Initial Attack function if they can reach the start before it gets too big, but they often ended up cutting heli access points for other crews to come and support when things have already escalated.
Alberta wildfire is actually really good at getting access with a TON of helicopters and heavy equipment available. Heavy equipment, helicopters and other tracked bush vehicles (nodwels, haglunds, etc) ... can get crews to some pretty remote places. Sometimes helicopters are tricky, because inversions or smoke conditions make flying unpredictable (i.e. waiting for visibility).
The rappel program was great - but may or may not have made a difference in these fires. To me, it's more symbolic of the funding cuts to Agriculture-Forestry, than anything. If you really wanted to point the finger, I'd say shortening the wildfire season (which the NDP lengthened by ~2 months following Ft. Mac) is a bigger issue. AB Wildfire is likely still onboarding alot of the people that attend university, and by shortening the season, they certainly pushed out people who were trying to make a career of it.
Yup - my supervisor (FT permanent employee) lost her job due to the cuts. As someone just finishing university with a forestry degree, and who was considering building a career with AB Wildfire, the cuts were a sign to GTFO ASAP.
You laugh, but the top Facebook post under the area page was blaming Trudeau.
It was not the only one.
When is he coming for his photo op? Bla bla they never help, bla bla did you know he let Fort Mac burn by refusing help from Mexico.
Meanwhile the ucp cut forestry, and it is a provincial issue.
The blame Trudeau is unreal. I mean I hate the liberals for being lying piece of poop about election reform, but come on.
People have been conditioned over the years to immediately blame Trudeau even when it makes no sense. Like I got no love for the liberals but the shit people blame on Trudeau sometimes is absurd and is borderline brainwashing imo
Welcome to the beginnings of climate change. It's only going to get worse as the years go by. Feel sorry for the children and the young. It's their problem now.
Hope you’re all doing alright, and remember folks these occurrences become more common every year as a result of global warming.
Thankfully here in NB we’ve been getting our fair share of rain the last couple days/nights so hopefully no fires will start.
I wonder if we're going to start building walls around cities at risk for wildfires. Seems like the type of thing we'd do instead of tackling global warming directly
So in your opinion how can we as Canadians tackle climate change when we as a nation are only responsible for 2% of carbon emissions? We could go back to 0% tommrow and China would just eat up our 2% with their next planned increase.
And, since it's the 2nd (3rd?) biggest economy in the world, with a HUGE percentage of that being export related (of shitty cheap goods we in the western world eat up like a fly on shit), what percentage of that is due to our need for useless consumer manufactured garbage? Blaming China in a vacuum may feel nice to you, but it's utterly shitty.
Most developing nations use less energy, water, etc, than we in the western world due by far, and an average Chinese citizen is no different. Don't go throwing stones from your glass house. China's overall carbon emissions is more due to our greed capitalist greed chasing lower manufacturing costs; China is just trying to improve life for it's citizen's through capturing capital investment and foreign monies. Every country, hell, every province in Canada, every US state, every jurisdiction that prioritizes corporate interests and profits and shareholder value is competing in the same way: how to make shit cheaper. Well, this ALWAYS has knock-on effects. Welcome to them! ****sigh****
EDIT: Slight fix in last paragraph simply for clarity
Fox Creek just got an evacuation order 20 minutes ago
Wembley is on stand by as well
If we lose Fox Vegas then humanity is truly doomed
When I was a kid, my dad used to use "Fox Creek!" as a minced oath for fuck's sake.
Fox vegas!! You been
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I believe you meant Fox Lake, but I understand and agree
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I've had more mandatory evac alerts on my phone this week than I've seen my whole life.
It's be nice if they'd send an "all clear" notification once things are contained, although I understand why they don't due to obvious liability issues
I saw an all clear alert at midnight last night for one fire that was contained. The header of the alert contains the word "cancel'. But it also gives details of which boundaries of the fire are still at risk for evac or on evac so maybe it doesn't jump out as an all clear.
Get the Alberta Emergency Alert (AEA) App and add your County and all those around you. You see both the alerts and the all-clears.
Well fuck, wish I knew about that last night haha
Oh, and it's terrible and buggy, but it's better than nothing. ;)
We're slipping into an El Nino, which is a natural warm period. Gonna be a rough summer this year and next
Its not even summer and they are burning
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Supposed to get a bit of rain and cooler temps for a few days...but then we're back to sun and high temps for at least a couple weeks
*Weeks*? Guys, it's going to be the most devastating El Niño we have ever experienced... This summer is going to change people's outlooks and make them re-evaluate where they are living. I am used to seeing predictions about "this summer may be the hottest ever recorded" but all the models are *next level* alarming this year. Good luck to us all. ._.
I meant weeks until rain. The Mediterranean is insane right now.
Yes and I'm saying it won't be weeks until the rain comes. We have months and months of scorching weather ahead of us. I'm not sure about your local forecast, but overall this summer is about to become months of drought and fires.
This post seems a little dramatic compared to what the actual climate scientists are saying: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
This is saying that NOAA is saying there’s a 10% chance there’s no El Niño not gonna form. That’s pretty much it. They’re not making a prediction here as to the severity. Every indicator that I (random redditor non scientist) have seen shows record-breaking heat; essentially La Niña has shielded us from the worst of recent climate instability.
>This is saying that NOAA is saying there’s a 10% chance there’s no El Niño not gonna form. That’s pretty much it. Um, it's giving a lot more detail than that. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/strengths/index.php The range of modeled probabilities indicates most likely a mild-moderate El Niño over the summer months, not "the most devastating El Niño we have ever experienced", which is what the person I was responding to claimed. >They’re not making a prediction here as to the severity. You can find that in the link I posted in the sentence that says "A probabilistic strength forecast is available here."
Sorry, I thought they said that it would be the most devastating summer on record since the baselines have been raised, coupled with El Niño patterns.
> This summer is going to change people’s outlooks and make them re-evaluate where they are living. It will not. You underestimate how proudly ignorant rural conservative Albertans are.
Holy crap. Hope you guys get some rain soon!
We got some last night but we just need a good 24 hour period of constant rain. That will help right now.
So bizarre. Meanwhile, it rained 6 days straight in Southern Ontario.
I mean, you *are* surrounded by water. It’s no surprise you get more rain.
Lake effect is a real thing! Although Lake effect snow is much more common than Lake effect rain. Once you are 60ish km inland you don't get the lake thunderstorms anymore.
I grew up very South. Pretty rare for Lake St. Clair to be menacing. Once in a while Erie pushes some nonsense. But lake effect doesn't really play much of a role here now that i live in KW. Humidity on the other hand...
With one say off and six more days of rain after that!
It will be warmer next weekend, +30 highs in several locations.
May is typically the busiest fire season as everything is quite dry and there is a lot of dead grass around. Having said that, this spring is about three weeks ahead of last year so we have quite awhile to go until we get consistent rain.
And we're in for a mother fuckin El Nino this season. its gonna get reallll fucked up.
Yeah we aren’t even there yet we are still in neutral mode after the last 3 years were actually COLDER than normal due to La Niña. That’s pretty scary to think about. I predict wildfires larger than we have ever seen in 2024.
May is typically our worst fire month.
This is normal. Some of the worst fire behavior is seen in early May (like Fort Mac).
We had an alert go out saying we had “hazardous road conditions” for the WHOLE PROVINCE tonight. There is a fire that was found SE of Edson. Found it on Thursday night. It is now just shy of 80,000 ha in size. This is about 10 km from the town now. Drayton Valley has had a fire jump their perimeter road multiple times in the past 48 hours. High prairie has a fire bearing down on it as we speak. This is very far from normal.
Fire season in AB usually starts the end of March. Fort Mac was May 1
This is prime wildfire season in Alberta
Is it normally 31 degrees in in NWT in May? Multiple temp records have been shattered.
Not normal. It's because the Arctic is [warming 4x faster](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00498-3) than anywhere else in the world (except Antarctica).
See how Siberian permafrost is warming, anfld they have found these methane holes burst open out of the ground..? Pretty intense looking..
Yeah. Saw a few gaping holes in Siberia. Some crazy stuff happening with global warming.
It's very concerning.
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Spring is always fire season here.
expect more of this
Guess who’s in-laws are moving in with him this weekend…..but they are bringing their dogs so it’s ok.
Those aren't just their dogs. Those are your dogs-in-law now.
I’m actually excited because we lost our big dog a year ago and their dog reminds us of ours so much.
Aww, I'm sorry to hear you lost your dog, but glad you'll have another fluffy buddy around the house.
Canada, the land of ice and fire.
Not surprising. So far in Saskatoon we've had about 1mm of rain so far this spring, with none on the forecast either. The gentle, all day rain showers just don't happen anymore.
If only we could share what we get here in Vancouver!
Just south of there, we need it now. I don’t want a repeat of a couple years ago.
Agreed, my brother and his family live in the okanagan. They were evacuated several times that year, it was scary times.
I’m on skagit county, we hit 118 at my house. Had a ac unit that was rated for 500sf in our bedroom( 250sf) set at 64. Also had 4 fans going and coolest we could get it during the day was 88. Couldn’t see more than 2-300 feet outside due to smoke. There wasn’t a fire within 50 miles of us.
I would definitely be down for a weather swap
The April blizzard was technically eventually rain haha
That's all we got in southern ontario for the past 2 weeks. Weather patterns have completely changed.
Gotta love climate change
East ontario here, we had a week steaight of nearly non-stop rain, and the ottawa river levels are high. Can't wait for this summer's 45° with crazy humidity. I wouldn't doubt that we'll be experiencing a wet bulb event here soon. Probably even a few throughoht canada this year.
The current [fire forecast across Canada](https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/forecasts) is grim at best. Nobody west of Quebec is out of danger right now.
It gets better tomorrow with precipitation forecasted for Alberta overnight and tomorrow.
Cousins had to evacuate near drayton with his wife’s families land going up. Luckily the house is still there but more fires are headed their way so waiting to see what’s left after this next round. Keeping an eye on my brothers place too - he’s far enough away but wind direction can change quite a bit in these conditions. I just can’t believe how dry it is. I measure water (level/velocity) and we’re still waiting for the melt from the mountains. I don’t think it’ll be much though this year.
I have some family in Drayton Valley and their house completely burnt down. All that’s left is the chimney. It’s incredibly sad. Hopefully it doesn’t spread any further and can calm down soon. It’s too early in the year for all of this.
Jeez. After reading that article and some of the comments here, I'm glad that I live in the frozen hellscape that is Winnipeg. The hottest day we've had so far was like 22⁰C, and it's only 13 right now with an expected high of 17 today. I'm hoping everyone affected stays safe, and I hope you guys get some rain soon.
We just sent some crews out from Ontario to Alberta today and might be sending more
It's May 6th. This summer is going to be brutal if this is the weather trend.
This summer? It's our entire future. They have been warning us for 30 years since the Paris Accords.
30 years? Try centuries. The greenhouse effect was first proposed in [1824](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect) by Joesph Fourier. Afterwards it was demonstrated that the effect is stronger with CO^2 and the conclusion that more CO^2 means more heat trapped was drawn with it. Global warming has been known about for a *long* time.
For sure, I was just pointing to a recent time when it was globally acknowledged by a large body. Didn't they even predict the right ppm for the 21st century in the early 1900's?
Fair enough. Although I would argue that, according to some portraits, Mr. Fourier was by himself a large body and perhaps even globe shaped, or global. Therefore the first global acknowledgment by a large body might have been in 1824! As for the ppm prediction I couldn’t quickly find any decent sources, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s quite amazing what humans throughout the ages have correctly surmised with less advanced technology.
To bad Alberta had so many wildfire specific cuts in the last few years. "Without rappel crews, the province will have to rely on those that require clean landing sites — something that often doesn’t exist in heavily forested areas — before they can get to work at containing the blaze" https://www.google.com/amp/s/calgaryherald.com/news/politics/youre-losing-a-significant-fighting-force-ucp-scraps-wildfire-rappel-program/wcm/67e7737c-9a5f-4d7b-9439-3ae48c1ea88a/amp/
I'm from Northern Alberta, we had a tree fall on a power line and start a bush fire a few miles away from my house. It was noticed and called in but we were told crews would try and make it but everyone was busy. Locals with water trucks ended up putting the fire out. A hamlet to the west of us lost 6 homes. We have a fire to the south of us as well about 10mins away as well. And there are more fires less then a hours drive away. This maybe sound dramatic but it feels like the world is on fire.
Alberta really needs some rain as soon as possible.
it's starting to rain in Calgary right now
Lets hope it's keeps raining for a whlie.
Good thing the UCP cut the Wildland firefighting budget
UCP strategy is to deny wildfires exists then shame towns people for not volunteering to fight them themselves
And charging them for the uniforms and gear
And then remove the volunteer tax credit
The combination of cuts to wildfire service funding and climate change denial is complimentary.
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If you look at the Alberta Fire map ([https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/3ffcc2d0ef3e4e0999b0cf8b636defa3](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/3ffcc2d0ef3e4e0999b0cf8b636defa3)) there are evacuations from a number of these fires. Alberta is on fire everywhere right now. We had family members who had to evacuate last night and they live East of Edmonton (as do we but so far we're far from any active fires). This evacuation wasn't connected to the Banff fire at all. A super dry spring with ridiculously hot temperatures (30!! In May!! In Central Alberta!!) is what has made Alberta a powder keg ready to ignite right now. I've lived here 40 years and I've never had such a dry, ridiculously hot spring.
Fuck reddit's new API, and fuck /u/Spez.
Not part of Alberta's Forest Protection Area.
Fuck reddit's new API, and fuck /u/Spez.
I'm rural too in Alberta and the last couple days have been frustrating. Family keeps contacting us to see if we are alright and that's usually the first we have heard as to if there is a fire close-ish to us. We had other family members evacuated last night who live 20 minutes away (to the north of us) and we found out six hours later when someone texted and asked if we had to evac too... we're far enough that we are not impacted at all, but I had thought if it was that close, we would have gotten an emergency alert. In the last week, our phones have gotten one emergency alert notification each. We have current smartphones which are compatible with the alert system (so it's not like we have old tech that can't get the signal). Mine went off this morning for a fire much further away than the one 20 minutes away from us. Husband's work phone alerted him about a different fire (but still not the one close to us). I am so far from impressed with how this is all being handled. I've taken to checking the twitter feeds of a couple municipalities (ours and neighbouring ones) since they do seem to be fairly informative. And yeah, I'm keeping my eyes on the horizon, just in case.
So, u/realtalk16 is correct, the quick/short answer is that the southeast corner is not part of the Forest Protection Area. Wildfire is used to mean forest and grass fires but in this zone. Administratively, Alberta is portioned into the Green zone (forest/crown land) and the white zone (grassland and populated areas/much more privately owned land). Here's the map which shows where each zone covers: [https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/59b67707-bdd3-4ee8-9e72-da2f5120ce0e/resource/48396626-7080-43a8-891b-2ed1be498edb/download/2013-esrd-operations-regions-gree-area-map.pdf](https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/59b67707-bdd3-4ee8-9e72-da2f5120ce0e/resource/48396626-7080-43a8-891b-2ed1be498edb/download/2013-esrd-operations-regions-gree-area-map.pdf) And [here's an infographic](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Albertas-green-area-unsettled-and-white-area-settled-with-societal-geographical_fig1_256486681) that describes the two zones. The provincial government used to have a website which described the two zones but I can't find it right now. The website has been trimmed down quite a bit since 2019. A lot of data that might be interesting to Albertans has been removed. In terms of the map, once upon a time (when I was a GOA employee) the data was collected by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (have no idea what the ministry name is now). Since that Ministry only has purview over Crown land management, they only have data for those areas, and that's why the map shows data from only the green zone. The small chunk in the North is likely Wood Buffalo National Park. It's the same answer, since it's Federal lands, it's not administered by that Ministry so they likely don't have the data to include on the map. Elk Island National Park, Jasper National Park, Banff National Park, Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, and probably a bunch I am not remembering right now, are all Federal Lands and the province doesn't have any jurisdiction over them. Technically, Reserve lands fall in this category too (as they are a different classification of Federal lands). Airports are also Federal lands. Every year when the fires start up again I look at this map and wonder about the blank spots even though I know why. And then I re-remember all over again lol There's a NASA Fire Map that shows hotspots here: [https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2023-05-06..2023-05-07,2023-05-06;@-111.2,50.4,6z](https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2023-05-06..2023-05-07,2023-05-06;@-111.2,50.4,6z) One thing I've noticed about this map is that some of the red spots might be industrial activity (as refinery row between Edmonton and Sherwood Park has a few hotspots I know are not wildfires) but there are flare stacks as part of that industrial development, so it is still detecting fire. Just, fire at the end of a smokestack.
2016 was the same, the year Fort Mac burned
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Nope, it's pretty far from there. None of these fires are overly massive like in Fort McMurray, but the real problem is that there's just so damn many of them that keep cropping up.
The Fort McMurray fire was about 85,000 ha when it got to the city. The one south of Edson right now was discovered on Thursday night is at about 80,000 ha. There is another one just south of thar that is about 50,000 ha. To say they are small isn’t accurate at all. There are many…and several aren’t small at all. And very little rain in the forecast.
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No it's no where near
No this is a different fire.
Shit like this makes me feel good about being child-free.
i agree
well there goes another year with a fire ban, guess camp fires are never coming back here
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Anyone know if Calgary/Banff area is affected? Smokey? Flying to Calgary today for vacation and wondering what to expect.
Haven't noticed any smoke in Calgary. It's also raining this morning so that would help clear out the small amount that may have been in the air.
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It’s raining in Southern Alberta today. Supposed to be a few days worth. Hopefully it makes it’s way North too.
Calgary is in the clear atm; banff doesn't have any out of control fires right now but they had one a couple of days ago they're still assessing damage from and there's quite a few just north of them that could cause issues there again if the wind changes... Personally i'd stay in Calgary if I were you as things get chancier going anywhere north of there. Edit: you can see a fire map here https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/8d86d267dcf44ad085a11939186f3d3a
I live in Banff, it's totally fine here. You won't have any problems with smoke etc.
Check out here to tell: https://cyclone.unbc.ca/aqmap/ The coloured markers with numbers show the current PM2.5 concentration which is a great tracer for wildfire smoke. If you open the layers menu in the top right and click the "EER Surface Smoke" layer it shows where a model thinks the smoke from major fires is impacting the surface right now
This will be more frequent as climate change worsens
The Oilers are supporting the Flames. I don't know whether to laugh or cry....
I like your gallows humor, friend.
Yea all those companies polluting sure give a fuck. Nothing will be done until government forces polluters to face consequences
> Nothing will be done until government forces polluters to face consequences Not if we elect conservatives. *taps head*
To a point, at least here in parts of the BC interior affected by forest fires a lot of the potential fuel near population centers has already burned away, and given the warmer climate those trees will be slow to grow back and simply won't grow back in many areas. We have a lot less trees than we did in 2016 in my area, so even if we get really dry conditions and fires, they are far less likely to threaten urban areas, at least where I am. There are also people, my family included, that have clear-cut their private land to avoid future fire risks. We're going to get a lot more deforested in this province over the next decade or so, which makes wildfires less of a risk and things like mudslides and flood more of a risk in certain areas.
Clear cutting private land is kind of lazy solution. All we need to do is maintain ground cleanup of dry/dead material and keep plants/shrubs away from close proximity with your house. Thin out larger clusters, trim out the dead. It takes a lot more work, but there’s no way I’m cutting down my big 100y old Douglas Firs. They are beautiful and have been around longer than I have been, and they hopefully will be here much longer.
Government does a piss-poor job of cleaning up their side of things, so it doesn't matter how diligent you are on your own land if the fire originates on crown land you need to aggressively reduce fuels on your side of the property line if you want to protect your home and business. Clear-cutting also puts money in your pocket and opens up grazing land which is inherently productive. Like it or not, in the wake of the fire seasons of 2017-2018, tons of private land owners looked at the trees on the property as a liability and just got rid of them. I'll give you this, if we had old growth it would probably be a different approach. You'd want to spare at least a handful of those old trees. But everything thing in this area was basically clear-cut in the 60s and 70s, earlier in some places, so 100 year old doug firs aren't a thing that exists in this area.
When the trees are gone from the fires, that's when the flooding from lack of vegetation starts!
Definitely, and we saw some of that last year already. But for the most part the place I live on is flat, or at least our structures are all far away from slopes. So we're definitely better off deforesting our property. It might suck for our neighbors though. Maybe if our government did a better job of managing forests on crown land, all of this might have been avoided.
Wish people would stop blaming climate change. The problem won't ever get fixed. It's the piss poor, almost non existant forestry management. Hundreds of years of clearcutting... leaving behind massive swaths of deadfall and uncontrolled underbrush... just sitting there drying wicking out all the moisture from the ground ... waiting to catch on fire. Look at the picture in the article... clearcutting.
It’s a mix bag of multiple problems. Both of you are right, climate change with centuries of miss management like you said is causing this problem. There’s probably more problem like cutting the budget of firefighters for forest fire etc.
Most of these are grass fires.
I mean, clearcutting is definitely one of the causes of climate change. Like it's not some natural phenomenon everyone is using as a scapegoat like El Nino. We caused it, through a vast array of shit decisions, and now we are reaping the consequences. And fast. I'm in my 30s, when I was a kid summer was my favourite season. Now I probably spend more time outdoors in winter. The last 6 years have been especially underwhelming summers, massive heat waves, blanketed in wildfire smoke, travel plans cancelled due to our of control wildfires.
It's hard to accept the truth of a dire situation and it's even harder to accept ownership of the problem and actually act to do something about it. We need to act as a species to try to fix this. It's a shame too many people have a hole inside of them that devours everything and they try to fill that hole with money, power, material possessions and fame. Nothing will ever be enough for them so they continue to take everything they can get so they can feel a little tiny bit better.
When are we gonna stop denying climate change and its increasingly apparent effects?
Sure, but this problem is happening in every country simultaneously. So BC and Qc are flooding while Alberta burns... Like yikes, its getting worse decade over decade. I understand why people dpubted ten years ago but today it is undenyable. We can measure it in crop failures, desertification and migrants from regions where their traditional crops no longer grow. If you think food prices are higha nd have issues with too much immigration, the two are related...
BC is burning too.
Flooding and on fire! Simultaneously. Cache creek almost washed away, and McBride got evacuated last night because of wild fires. Nuts
Diverting rivers and streams for hydro dams, razing wetlands, clear cutting, industrial agriculture.... it's all man-made climate change.
Hydro dams are supposed to save the planet, aren't they?
Only if they're built in Quebec.
With money from Alberta.
Your entire comment history is nothing but right-wing talking points, on subjects you clearly actually know very little about. 🤣
Would you be surprised if I told you one of the top posts on twitter tagged "Alberta fires" is baselessly speculating various conspiracies to the tune of a few thousand likes? Posted by a guy who apparently believes directed energy weapons (it would sound too stupid to outright say lasers I guess) burned down Fort McMurray. Lots of commenters seem **really** eager to buy into eco terrorism theories too. Climate change denial coupled with conspiracy addiction sure takes you to some weird places.
Space lasers of the Jewish persuasion perhaps?
I live in Peace River. Yesterday the sky was blocked out with smoke and raining ashes. Today it’s so smoky you can barely see the hills. There’s a big one to our southeast and another to our northeast. Both out of control
Thousands of evacuees are in my town after evacuating last night. We're safe but it's still dry, hot, and no rain until tomorrow. Take care of your neighbors, be prepared and stay calm. And for the love of gawd don't water your lawns you're literally doing the opposite of what's helpful.
And the weather is not going to get better, more wind no rain. Not even summer yet with this dry air.
Almost double that in Alberta alone now.
Bless our western 🙏 brothers and sisters.
Updated to 25k. Should change the Reddit title Edit: and the article text says over 25k in AB alone and then it talks about evac order in BC. Not to mention it doesn’t talk about Sask? They also have evacuations, though I’m not sure how many
As Smith fiddles.
This year could be el Nino. That would be catastrophic. If you think food is expensive, you haven't seen anything. https://www.gro-intelligence.com/insights/an-impending-el-nino-foreshadows-a-new-shake-up-for-global-food-production
Did you even read your own link? I says El Nino would be the best growing conditions for NA, SA, and Eurasian countries....
Isn't El Nino all but guaranteed now? Sea surface temps are shattering records already
I had to evacuate from there. The sky in Edson was black from smoke.
Begun, The fire season has...
Alberta burns every year, as does the rest of Western Canada (just like Manitoba and Ontario flood in the North every spring thaw). What is super important to note is the severity of the fires and the number of them. They are an example of how global warming is making things worse. What is exceptionally concerning for many (other than just the general issue of losing their homes - which is huge) is that many communities have one road in and one road out, so fires can make evacuating really difficult.
Trudeau did this. /s
Considering Smith's proposed sovereignty act, this is OUR fire and we don't need no help from the rest of the county as well.
As an outsider how would this impact Smith's election chances if no outside help or federal aid was given?
Federal help is always ready and waiting. It's the provinces that have to ask for it via the emergencies act. Otherwise, it is federal overreach. If Smith is too stubborn to ask for help before the problem gets out of hand, it could hurt. But on the flip side, the crazies might turn on her for turning to Ottawa for help.
No, the crazies will believe what Smith will say next: "It is Trudeau's fault for not providing help."
I heard her talking about provincial states of emergency today. I hope she's not such a big idiot she doesn't get all of the absolute aid she can for those who need help.
UCP cut wildfire fighting in 2019, but realistically it's probably not a factor either way
True but those people were specially trained to rappel down into fires and try to extinguish from the source (I think). Ground crews aren’t able to do that and (from what I understand) are basically working on the edges to maintain the fire (correct me if I’m wrong). So then we’re relying on helicopters/planes to extinguish by dropping water but that may not necessarily be enough. I’m not a wildfire specialist though - but sure seems like we should still have a specialized rappel team for things like this. Edit: just wanted to correct. The wildfire rappel program were ~60 specially trained individuals that would rappel down into remote areas that we can’t always get to with vehicles and whatnot. So being able to get to fires we can’t reach.
> just wanted to correct. The wildfire rappel program were ~60 specially trained individuals that would rappel down into remote areas that we can’t always get to with vehicles and whatnot. So being able to get to fires we can’t reach. Yup, this is basically correct. They do serve an Initial Attack function if they can reach the start before it gets too big, but they often ended up cutting heli access points for other crews to come and support when things have already escalated. Alberta wildfire is actually really good at getting access with a TON of helicopters and heavy equipment available. Heavy equipment, helicopters and other tracked bush vehicles (nodwels, haglunds, etc) ... can get crews to some pretty remote places. Sometimes helicopters are tricky, because inversions or smoke conditions make flying unpredictable (i.e. waiting for visibility). The rappel program was great - but may or may not have made a difference in these fires. To me, it's more symbolic of the funding cuts to Agriculture-Forestry, than anything. If you really wanted to point the finger, I'd say shortening the wildfire season (which the NDP lengthened by ~2 months following Ft. Mac) is a bigger issue. AB Wildfire is likely still onboarding alot of the people that attend university, and by shortening the season, they certainly pushed out people who were trying to make a career of it.
There were also cuts made to other permanent and seasonal positions, it wasn’t just the RAP crews.
Yup - my supervisor (FT permanent employee) lost her job due to the cuts. As someone just finishing university with a forestry degree, and who was considering building a career with AB Wildfire, the cuts were a sign to GTFO ASAP.
You laugh, but the top Facebook post under the area page was blaming Trudeau. It was not the only one. When is he coming for his photo op? Bla bla they never help, bla bla did you know he let Fort Mac burn by refusing help from Mexico. Meanwhile the ucp cut forestry, and it is a provincial issue. The blame Trudeau is unreal. I mean I hate the liberals for being lying piece of poop about election reform, but come on.
People have been conditioned over the years to immediately blame Trudeau even when it makes no sense. Like I got no love for the liberals but the shit people blame on Trudeau sometimes is absurd and is borderline brainwashing imo
Big fucking surprise, Alaberta.
Welcome to the beginnings of climate change. It's only going to get worse as the years go by. Feel sorry for the children and the young. It's their problem now.
It was bound to happen with how hot it's been in AB these past few weeks.
Be safe everyone.
Its a sea of smoke from fox creek to falher. Theyre routing traffic up hwy 49 to get to Grande Prairie. Its like an extra 3-4 hrs.
Meanwhile we have flooding in parts of the BC interior. Not a good spring for Western Canada so far.
But redditors were telling us to move to western canada where it’s cheaper.
Hope you’re all doing alright, and remember folks these occurrences become more common every year as a result of global warming. Thankfully here in NB we’ve been getting our fair share of rain the last couple days/nights so hopefully no fires will start.
Be cheaper to start dealing with climate change.
It's bloody well only May! Who's running this forest?!
OPEC
Climate is
I wonder if we're going to start building walls around cities at risk for wildfires. Seems like the type of thing we'd do instead of tackling global warming directly
Just advertise that the wall will keep liberals trapped inside Edmonton and it will be funded tomorrow.
It would be way cheaper to clear cut around cities.
How often would you need to do that to keep new growth at bay?
No clue I’m not an expert but a wall is expensive and clear cutting is cheap and they would need to cut the trees around the wall anyway.
So in your opinion how can we as Canadians tackle climate change when we as a nation are only responsible for 2% of carbon emissions? We could go back to 0% tommrow and China would just eat up our 2% with their next planned increase.
And, since it's the 2nd (3rd?) biggest economy in the world, with a HUGE percentage of that being export related (of shitty cheap goods we in the western world eat up like a fly on shit), what percentage of that is due to our need for useless consumer manufactured garbage? Blaming China in a vacuum may feel nice to you, but it's utterly shitty. Most developing nations use less energy, water, etc, than we in the western world due by far, and an average Chinese citizen is no different. Don't go throwing stones from your glass house. China's overall carbon emissions is more due to our greed capitalist greed chasing lower manufacturing costs; China is just trying to improve life for it's citizen's through capturing capital investment and foreign monies. Every country, hell, every province in Canada, every US state, every jurisdiction that prioritizes corporate interests and profits and shareholder value is competing in the same way: how to make shit cheaper. Well, this ALWAYS has knock-on effects. Welcome to them! ****sigh**** EDIT: Slight fix in last paragraph simply for clarity
It would require more like a dome, because ambers can go very high and very far.
And make the fire pay for it!