Forest Fires

They were a big deal in our landscape architecture businsess, a couple of those in the general Los Angeles area. It started with our schooling re the right plants but also with city and fire department advisories. One of my clients, in the Malibu area (near the ocean) had a fairly large acreage, and was lucky that the fire stopped just before the house, stopped by a large planting of the one of the tallest Oleander trees. She called me after that, re replanting; she was an interesting woman, wrote a book about manatees, my friend as a fellow taker of adult learning italian classes.

When I was still at university, the Bel Air fire got to within five blocks from our house - scary stuff. So, yes, I'm pretty tuned in to fire stories. Also their aftermath in some areas: massive mud slides after the rains come around.

There are things to do re your house for protection, but I don't remember all of it right now.

It was less of a deal when I moved to coastal northern California, but that was just an area that was in better shape, fire wise, than my southern California experience. There are fires in New Mexico too, but I know less about that. So far, so good.

Edit - there was a good booklet put out by a fire expert, Klaus Radke, but it is likely out of date by now. Lots of useful advice.

I looked up Klaus Radke on google, and finally found the guy after I retried it with
Klaus Radke fire booklet -
lots of links there re his books.

Large forest fires rarely happen in the UK. Now and then during a major heatwave and drought (very rare occurance) we might have patchy fires here and there.
The last major one I remember was all around Ringwood (New Forest), maybe twenty or so years ago.

they've just confirmed that 88,000 people are in the process of being evacuated

hospitals emptied with patients being flown out

babies are being born in emergency centres

it's like reading/hearing news from war zones

the mind boggles

I've just been watching this on the beeb.

Jeezus. Is this worse than normal? Average?

It looks like judgement day.

Last year was a particularly bad fire year.

'The Fort Mc fire is a big deal because it's early in the season and it's a bigger community than usual that is being evacuated.

If you can get the CBC radio feed on your computer give a listen. It's unbelievable.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/blog/?pplid=1.3566181

they've just announced that the city may be gone by tomorrow morning

it's heartbreaking

hope all living creatures get out safely

Yes. I remember the anguish over the animals, besides the humans.

I'll try to catch it, but probably not with my computer.

So scary. Hope the people managed to take all their pets and livestock.

You must have fire breaks etc built into the grand scheme of your forestry. Maybe they need to establish bigger breaks/barriers for the future?

Water barriers such as dams, reservoirs etc?

You can't keep having this situation every year.

I knew it was really bad when they said on the CBC that the disaster response center in Fort Mc had to be evacuated, and they were hoping everyone got out. They're trying to get everyone in the city to evacuate.

We have been too waterlogged, of late.

CBC has now said that Fort Mc is empty, except for emergency services personnel. There has been one fatality--a car accident during the final evacuation.

The spaces are just so freaking enormous. There are fires that are sometimes bigger than small European countries. Hard to have country-sized fire breaks.

They're not expecting rain for another 5 - 7 days.

Worst of the fire for Fort Mc is expected to be tonight. It's just horrendous. People talking about driving past exploding gas stations.

Fires here happening far more frequently, the fire season has expanded dramatically, they are far more intense and damaging. Also, now burning and destroying temperate rain forest in places like Tasmania which have never burned before. Destroyed large amounts of heritage rainforest just recently irreplaceable

Heard news about your fires with great sadness

Welcome. Oh brave new world.

We appear to be regularly exchanging fire fighting personnel with the US. I haven't heard anything about our people going to Canada for this Seems odd

I thought that after I posted.

Having lived on an Island about the size of a medium sized Australian sheep farm all my life, I think that 15 miles is a vast distance.

I shall now send vibes for a 24 hour rainstorm.

A large crew of Mexican firefighters arrived in Fort Mc yesterday. Will have to see if there is news of any Australian firefighters.

The fire evacuation area expanded overnight.

that rainstorm is much needed

no good news yet

20,000 people currently stranded north of Fort Mc

helicopters and RCMP are going to try and lead a convoy south through the fire tomorrow

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the Fort Mc fire is now 85,000 hectares which is 850 square kilometres or 210,000 acres

Liechtenstein is 160 square kilometres

other fires north and west