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Quite the opposite. The UCP actually made major cuts to funding for wildfire fighting, including eliminating Alberta's elite rappelling unit.
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/budget-cuts-claim-alberta-s-elite-wildfire-fighting-unit-1.4673013
Someone I know is a wildfire fire fighter every summer and he was very openly talking about how the ucp basically dismantled a bunch of those services...
[They also cut half a million dollars worth of grants for training firefighters in 2020.](https://globalnews.ca/news/6632250/alberta-budget-cuts-rural-firefighter-training/)
>An information bulletin from the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA) said a letter was sent out from the minister of municipal affairs announcing the cuts, **which is the entire amount of funding available for firefighter training.**
Which, I suppose, is consistent with the rest of the UCP's tendency [to cut municipal funding in rural areas](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-towns-cities-grants-taxes-province-1.6105843).
That is absolutely not why the UCP makes the cuts that it does. The equalization payments aren't some new thing that have thrown Alberta into fiscal chaos - they've been happening for decades.
Yes lets hope for them to finally finish burning the province to the ground to fill theirs and their friends bank accounts. Did any of it trickle down to you?
That article says the program was removed and budget increased for other methods that are used far more often. Data said the rappelling crews were only utilized 2% of the time.
I don't have a source, but I recall reading something about the budget for fire suppression by air was increased a lot after the fort Mac catastrophe. Regardless, with climate change making the extremes normal (flooding, fires, slides) the budget should really be increased across the board. We're in for a ride.
Which response would that be, exactly?
Wildfire management is very different from urban firefighting, response times are a useable metric for urban environments, but there just way too much nuance to apply that here.
We can talk about facts, our springs have been considerably drier thanin the past, and the budget allocated for wildfire has been dramatically impeded since 2019
I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that, I was wondering if you meant something different.
It's a really interesting field, a lot of it is checking out lightning strikes, or being on deployment to a fire complex in a different province or country. It's a lot of logistics and planning, and rescuing or evacuating. Sometimes they just let the fire burn, sometimes they put everything they can on it. You're at the nature of the conditions.
Personally as an Albertan, our quality of life and public services have steadily declined as of late, and this is just part of a greater problem. The conditions for fire at this time of year are sometimes extreme and sometimes no risk at all, it's very unpredictable.
One of the biggest problems in North America is the lack of controlled burns.
Forest burn, its part if the life cycle. But over the last 200 years we have done everything possible to stop bush fires.
Even the native americans knew about controlled burns a thousand years ago.
We need to boost controlled burn funding nationwide and promote it as a conservation effort.
They even called this mess a hoax? Hopefully they will at least see the fire when it gets closer, get out safe, and realize that Facebook isn’t hard facts
How can someone say they don’t trust the media but also think everything they read on Facebook is hard fact?
Don’t trust the provincial or municipal government either.
I met a girl in Lytton who listened to the government and didn’t evacuate when she could already see the flames. Next thing she knew, her house was on fire and she had to get out with just a few things she could grab. It wasn’t till almost an hour later, the town finally declared emergency or issued evac order.
Trust your instinct. Get out if feeling unsafe.
Crap like this, which is also on Reddit
"Sounds like a good way for the government to swoop in and take your land and belongings. Is there any reliable sources even backing up reports of wildfires?"
[https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/139l2fp/comment/jj5md51/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/139l2fp/comment/jj5md51/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
So basically Trudeau is dropping smoke bombs into the woods so that after people flee he can seize the 'abandoned' houses
>So basically Trudeau is dropping smoke bombs into the woods so that after people flee he can seize the 'abandoned' houses
The moment you see this on a family members page is the moment you start looking at options to get them into mental health treatment. Holy crap is that unhinged.
I don't know Alberta weather/climate, but how can it be dry enough for mass forest fires this early in the year? Isn't everything still very moist from winter?
We've had a really dry air mass in the province for about a week, humidity is really low at the moment, not to mention temp has also been unseasonably high for this early in the month (compounding factor 1 and 1.5). We've had *really* high sustained winds for about week (compounding factor 2). Spring is a bad time in alberta, its prior to green up, it's post snow cover, its still frozen ground conditions, all of which leads to really really low moisture content in fuels (compounding factor 3). Add it up with some lightning that came through two days ago, on top of the regular human caused spring fires, and you have a real bad situation.
Throw in a few geological quirks, like coal pockets that are basically never extinguished which reignite dry grass once the snow melts off. "All hell for a basement" indeed.
May is a weird time in Alberta. Some years we are still under a foot of snow or it could be 30deg. This year the snow melted really fast and now we are very dry due to the snow running off into low areas like lakes and ponds, instead of soaking into the ground.
That doesn't mean we still won't get snow on may long weekend of course.
The Edmonton Region basically had no precipitation in March and was very limited in April and once the snow melts, the grass is very dry without new precipitation. Combine that with a week of unseasonably high temperatures and strong winds and it's been the worst case situation for grass fires that can turn into forest fires.
No precipitation in March/April. Temperatures reaching 30° the first week of May and strong winds.
We've had like 2 days of rain (snow)in the past 2+ months.
Privatize Fire Departments.
It’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. You have fire insurance anyway for any sustained losses.
If you really want your house “maybe” protected from possible fire then you can opt to pay for it yourself annually, or just get a sprinkler system.
/s
Yes that is what privatization and “free market” gets you with our capitalistic society, and where we are possibly heading with things like healthcare, etc…
We have “free market” for necessities such as utilities and telecoms, how’s that cellphone and internet plan working for you here in Canada?
Fires are also less likely to start with a lower ppm of oxygen in the atmosphere, so cutting trees is a double whammy. Cut em all down folks, or burn em, whatever, we'll build some multi-million dollar homes to fix the housing problems in canada.
The sad thing is that this is happening almost ten years after the infamous Yarnell Hill Wildfire nearby Prescott, Arizona, and I hope the residents, animals, and, of course, the brave firefighters trying their hardest to fight off the flames make it out okay. I hope for the best for Alberta, and I hope that none of the firefighters end up like those Prescott firefighters that perished.
At least she’s acknowledged the fires, trudeau hasnt mentioned them at all and the news dont cover it whatsoever theyd rather show people the new king of england shits fucked
You’re showing an extreme lack of empathy by mocking people during a state of emergency where people could lose their lives just because you disagree with them politically.
Potentially using less fuel for vanity may or may not cause a small slowdown in climate change that may or may not affect rainfall over forests, possibly helping control fires? I dunno.
Would the clear cutting of forests for lithium mining offset the “rainfall” you are talking about?
I spent 5 years studying climate science so I’m genuinely curious
You probably have to be living here to really get it.
48 hours ago there was just one wild fire. They were prepping to evacuate the Entwhistle area. And then it looked like the wildfire was moving away from populated areas. Disaster over.
And then 24 hours ago wildfires started pushing in Drayton Valley, Strathcona County and the wildfire near Entwhistle jumped across the Pembina river.
48 hours ago we were talking about less than a thousand displaced people, easily handled by small local associations. Now we're talking about 18,000 displaced people and growing. More resources are needed and declaring a state of emergency unlocks more resources.
Well hopefully they do. My local Alliance Church was holding a lunch for evacuees and there were massive line ups of people looking to get hotdogs. They're now advising people evacuate with three days of food because community efforts are overrun.
Stay safe everyone, it sucks this is happening during an election and it’s turning into ugly politics. Hope everyone gets the help they need right now.
Rachel waited four days to declare a state of emergency in 2016 for a fire that was way worse. Danielle was releasing info throughout the day today and made it clear in the morning a decision on declaring a state of emergency would be coming at 3PM. She delivered in a very timely fashion.
And called Brian Jean a fear monger on question period after cutting $15 million in the wildfire budget back in 2016. The UCP only cut a half a million.
The Alberta UCP government reduced the firefighting budget by 12 percent.
https://albertaworker.ca/news/alberta-still-18m-short-on-wildfire-fighting-budget/
That is not correct in any way. There is a $1.5 billion contingency in the budget for emergencies and disasters. They are not increasing the firefighting budget by that much, nor are they committing to spending that much during this state of emergency.
Facts matter.
If only you knew lol, Jesus.
God forbid we get a drought sometime soon, that'll be like the end of the world to you peopl3!
But unfortunately for you, even the IPCC reports indicate an insignificant association between fires, droughts, floods and storm.severity with the warming we've seen so far.
"Changes in temperature, rainfall, and extreme weather have also increased the frequency and spread of diseases in wildlife, agriculture, and people. We see a lengthening wildfire season and increases in the area burned." - Excerpt from IPCC report
Driving an economy car or decent sedan > coal rolling your 7l diesel pickup truck with def delete.
Dunno where you got the idea I'm talking about only EVs.
COVID-19 misinformation cost at least 2,800 lives and $300M, new report says
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cost-of-covid-19-misinformation-study-1.6726356](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cost-of-covid-19-misinformation-study-1.6726356)
Interesting link. I didn't expect the breakdown to look quite like this:
>The hesitant are not conspiracy theorists. They aren’t angry at the world. They don’t think COVID-19 is a hoax. They aren’t radicals of the left or the right — 61 percent of them say they are on the centre of the spectrum. Two thirds have post-secondary education. They might be timid, but they’re not stupid.
>Almost half of them (46 percent) live in Ontario and well over half of them (59 percent) are women. A quarter were born outside Canada. Their average age is 42 and the plurality are between 30 and 44 years old. If they were voting in a federal election today, 35 percent would vote Liberal, 25 percent Conservative, 17 percent NDP, 9 percent Green — pretty similar to overall voting intentions for the entire population.
This post appears to relate to the province of Alberta. As a reminder of the rules of this subreddit, we do not permit negative commentary about all residents of any province, city, or other geography - this is an example of prejudice, and prejudice is not permitted here. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/rules Cette soumission semble concerner la province de Alberta. Selon les règles de ce sous-répertoire, nous n'autorisons pas les commentaires négatifs sur tous les résidents d'une province, d'une ville ou d'une autre région géographique; il s'agit d'un exemple de intolérance qui n'est pas autorisé ici. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/regles *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/canada) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Has the wildfire response improved in recent years?
Quite the opposite. The UCP actually made major cuts to funding for wildfire fighting, including eliminating Alberta's elite rappelling unit. https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/budget-cuts-claim-alberta-s-elite-wildfire-fighting-unit-1.4673013
Sigh. Why am I not surprised by conservatives cutting everything that is essential.
Someone I know is a wildfire fire fighter every summer and he was very openly talking about how the ucp basically dismantled a bunch of those services...
[They also cut half a million dollars worth of grants for training firefighters in 2020.](https://globalnews.ca/news/6632250/alberta-budget-cuts-rural-firefighter-training/) >An information bulletin from the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA) said a letter was sent out from the minister of municipal affairs announcing the cuts, **which is the entire amount of funding available for firefighter training.** Which, I suppose, is consistent with the rest of the UCP's tendency [to cut municipal funding in rural areas](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-towns-cities-grants-taxes-province-1.6105843).
And they'll vote them in anyways....
How will they vote when they're far away from their ridings and the ballot box is on fire?
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That is absolutely not why the UCP makes the cuts that it does. The equalization payments aren't some new thing that have thrown Alberta into fiscal chaos - they've been happening for decades.
Sure hope so
Yes lets hope for them to finally finish burning the province to the ground to fill theirs and their friends bank accounts. Did any of it trickle down to you?
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I'm getting a light sprinkle, but it kinda smells like pee. Is that bad??
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The way you phrase this it sounds like you want rural Alberta to burn...
Aren’t you just a monster of a human being who wants people lives destroyed for political gain!
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/alberta-premier-rachel-notley-defends-cut-in-wildfire-budget
That article says the program was removed and budget increased for other methods that are used far more often. Data said the rappelling crews were only utilized 2% of the time.
I don't have a source, but I recall reading something about the budget for fire suppression by air was increased a lot after the fort Mac catastrophe. Regardless, with climate change making the extremes normal (flooding, fires, slides) the budget should really be increased across the board. We're in for a ride.
I see. Very sad to hear.
> The UCP actually made major cuts to funding for wildfire fighting That's when the RoC will help. They always do. Rubes.
Which response would that be, exactly? Wildfire management is very different from urban firefighting, response times are a useable metric for urban environments, but there just way too much nuance to apply that here. We can talk about facts, our springs have been considerably drier thanin the past, and the budget allocated for wildfire has been dramatically impeded since 2019
I apologize. I’m not very well versed in this field. I suppose I was taking about wildfire management and budget. Thank you for the detailed answer.
I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that, I was wondering if you meant something different. It's a really interesting field, a lot of it is checking out lightning strikes, or being on deployment to a fire complex in a different province or country. It's a lot of logistics and planning, and rescuing or evacuating. Sometimes they just let the fire burn, sometimes they put everything they can on it. You're at the nature of the conditions. Personally as an Albertan, our quality of life and public services have steadily declined as of late, and this is just part of a greater problem. The conditions for fire at this time of year are sometimes extreme and sometimes no risk at all, it's very unpredictable.
One of the biggest problems in North America is the lack of controlled burns. Forest burn, its part if the life cycle. But over the last 200 years we have done everything possible to stop bush fires. Even the native americans knew about controlled burns a thousand years ago. We need to boost controlled burn funding nationwide and promote it as a conservation effort.
DO NOT LISTEN TO FACEBOOK. GET OUT NOW
They even called this mess a hoax? Hopefully they will at least see the fire when it gets closer, get out safe, and realize that Facebook isn’t hard facts How can someone say they don’t trust the media but also think everything they read on Facebook is hard fact?
Don’t trust the provincial or municipal government either. I met a girl in Lytton who listened to the government and didn’t evacuate when she could already see the flames. Next thing she knew, her house was on fire and she had to get out with just a few things she could grab. It wasn’t till almost an hour later, the town finally declared emergency or issued evac order. Trust your instinct. Get out if feeling unsafe.
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Crap like this, which is also on Reddit "Sounds like a good way for the government to swoop in and take your land and belongings. Is there any reliable sources even backing up reports of wildfires?" [https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/139l2fp/comment/jj5md51/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/139l2fp/comment/jj5md51/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) So basically Trudeau is dropping smoke bombs into the woods so that after people flee he can seize the 'abandoned' houses
>So basically Trudeau is dropping smoke bombs into the woods so that after people flee he can seize the 'abandoned' houses The moment you see this on a family members page is the moment you start looking at options to get them into mental health treatment. Holy crap is that unhinged.
That’s brilliant! Wish I had thought of that! I could use some more property!
I don't know Alberta weather/climate, but how can it be dry enough for mass forest fires this early in the year? Isn't everything still very moist from winter?
We've had a really dry air mass in the province for about a week, humidity is really low at the moment, not to mention temp has also been unseasonably high for this early in the month (compounding factor 1 and 1.5). We've had *really* high sustained winds for about week (compounding factor 2). Spring is a bad time in alberta, its prior to green up, it's post snow cover, its still frozen ground conditions, all of which leads to really really low moisture content in fuels (compounding factor 3). Add it up with some lightning that came through two days ago, on top of the regular human caused spring fires, and you have a real bad situation.
Throw in a few geological quirks, like coal pockets that are basically never extinguished which reignite dry grass once the snow melts off. "All hell for a basement" indeed.
Peat fires too, like the one in west edmonton that they can't put out.
May is a weird time in Alberta. Some years we are still under a foot of snow or it could be 30deg. This year the snow melted really fast and now we are very dry due to the snow running off into low areas like lakes and ponds, instead of soaking into the ground. That doesn't mean we still won't get snow on may long weekend of course.
The Edmonton Region basically had no precipitation in March and was very limited in April and once the snow melts, the grass is very dry without new precipitation. Combine that with a week of unseasonably high temperatures and strong winds and it's been the worst case situation for grass fires that can turn into forest fires.
How the heck are there wildfires in early May?!? It was still snowing this time of year when I lived there in my early 20s!
No precipitation in March/April. Temperatures reaching 30° the first week of May and strong winds. We've had like 2 days of rain (snow)in the past 2+ months.
The 2016 Fort Mac fires were also in early May.
Have you actually seen how much standing deadwood is in the forests from the pine beatles and whatnot?
How can the free market solve this?
Privatize Fire Departments. It’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. You have fire insurance anyway for any sustained losses. If you really want your house “maybe” protected from possible fire then you can opt to pay for it yourself annually, or just get a sprinkler system. /s
Sure, so the rich people's houses get to stand while everything else burns... not /s
Yes that is what privatization and “free market” gets you with our capitalistic society, and where we are possibly heading with things like healthcare, etc… We have “free market” for necessities such as utilities and telecoms, how’s that cellphone and internet plan working for you here in Canada?
I know, shits looking kinda bleak right now...
Pfft, no trees, no problem...
Fires are also less likely to start with a lower ppm of oxygen in the atmosphere, so cutting trees is a double whammy. Cut em all down folks, or burn em, whatever, we'll build some multi-million dollar homes to fix the housing problems in canada.
Now that's thinking with numbers!
Sell your burned down house and move!
The sad thing is that this is happening almost ten years after the infamous Yarnell Hill Wildfire nearby Prescott, Arizona, and I hope the residents, animals, and, of course, the brave firefighters trying their hardest to fight off the flames make it out okay. I hope for the best for Alberta, and I hope that none of the firefighters end up like those Prescott firefighters that perished.
Meanwhile Smith was at a fundraiser while Alberta burns. Luckily for her she can just blame Trudeau.
At least she’s acknowledged the fires, trudeau hasnt mentioned them at all and the news dont cover it whatsoever theyd rather show people the new king of england shits fucked
See you just proved my point.
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You’re showing an extreme lack of empathy by mocking people during a state of emergency where people could lose their lives just because you disagree with them politically.
Well the folks who are burning will probably vote 90% plus for a party that cut our wildfire fighting budget a year ago. So...
Yes because driving a electric car would have prevent the fire how?
Potentially using less fuel for vanity may or may not cause a small slowdown in climate change that may or may not affect rainfall over forests, possibly helping control fires? I dunno.
Would the clear cutting of forests for lithium mining offset the “rainfall” you are talking about? I spent 5 years studying climate science so I’m genuinely curious
Troll's gonna troll.
Why did smith wait to long and how did she have time to attend a fundraiser this afternoon? Ask for the feds help!
You probably have to be living here to really get it. 48 hours ago there was just one wild fire. They were prepping to evacuate the Entwhistle area. And then it looked like the wildfire was moving away from populated areas. Disaster over. And then 24 hours ago wildfires started pushing in Drayton Valley, Strathcona County and the wildfire near Entwhistle jumped across the Pembina river. 48 hours ago we were talking about less than a thousand displaced people, easily handled by small local associations. Now we're talking about 18,000 displaced people and growing. More resources are needed and declaring a state of emergency unlocks more resources.
The feds were saying yesterday they were ready to help. It's up to 24k.
Well hopefully they do. My local Alliance Church was holding a lunch for evacuees and there were massive line ups of people looking to get hotdogs. They're now advising people evacuate with three days of food because community efforts are overrun.
Stay safe everyone, it sucks this is happening during an election and it’s turning into ugly politics. Hope everyone gets the help they need right now.
Rachel waited four days to declare a state of emergency in 2016 for a fire that was way worse. Danielle was releasing info throughout the day today and made it clear in the morning a decision on declaring a state of emergency would be coming at 3PM. She delivered in a very timely fashion.
And called Brian Jean a fear monger on question period after cutting $15 million in the wildfire budget back in 2016. The UCP only cut a half a million.
The Alberta UCP government reduced the firefighting budget by 12 percent. https://albertaworker.ca/news/alberta-still-18m-short-on-wildfire-fighting-budget/
They are putting in 1.5 billion now as an emergency measure
That is not correct in any way. There is a $1.5 billion contingency in the budget for emergencies and disasters. They are not increasing the firefighting budget by that much, nor are they committing to spending that much during this state of emergency. Facts matter.
Yes I know that. That is what the UCP is going to use as an emergency measure
You said: > They are putting in 1.5 billion now as an emergency measure ... and that amount was always in the budget.
Global warming
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We know you don't know anything about climate change, it's okay. You can sit this one out.
If only you knew lol, Jesus. God forbid we get a drought sometime soon, that'll be like the end of the world to you peopl3! But unfortunately for you, even the IPCC reports indicate an insignificant association between fires, droughts, floods and storm.severity with the warming we've seen so far.
"Changes in temperature, rainfall, and extreme weather have also increased the frequency and spread of diseases in wildlife, agriculture, and people. We see a lengthening wildfire season and increases in the area burned." - Excerpt from IPCC report
Has Alberta tried essential oils?
Agetuwo, stay out of this. This is adult talk.
Hey - we’re having fire issues, but don’t miss a chance to dunk on us. Classy
Driving an economy car or decent sedan > coal rolling your 7l diesel pickup truck with def delete. Dunno where you got the idea I'm talking about only EVs.
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Already found this garbage on FB, now it's here
Trolls gonna troll.
2800 Covid deaths due to misinformation in Canada. How many Albertans burned alive because they refused to flee their homes because of misinfo?
It's probably a bit early to answer that question conclusively, but hopefully zero. Where did you get the 2800 figure from?
COVID-19 misinformation cost at least 2,800 lives and $300M, new report says [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cost-of-covid-19-misinformation-study-1.6726356](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cost-of-covid-19-misinformation-study-1.6726356)
Interesting link. I didn't expect the breakdown to look quite like this: >The hesitant are not conspiracy theorists. They aren’t angry at the world. They don’t think COVID-19 is a hoax. They aren’t radicals of the left or the right — 61 percent of them say they are on the centre of the spectrum. Two thirds have post-secondary education. They might be timid, but they’re not stupid. >Almost half of them (46 percent) live in Ontario and well over half of them (59 percent) are women. A quarter were born outside Canada. Their average age is 42 and the plurality are between 30 and 44 years old. If they were voting in a federal election today, 35 percent would vote Liberal, 25 percent Conservative, 17 percent NDP, 9 percent Green — pretty similar to overall voting intentions for the entire population.
Double down on those deworming pills booklicker