Dang... We're getting hit hard this year. First sars, Then the mad cow fiasco, and now the worst fire season in 50 years.
If I were to make lemons into lemonade I would have to say the hunting should be good in a couple of years...

http://www.canada.com/vancouver/globaltv/

 

Been reading about your fires. Seen a few pictures of it. Looks bad. Hope they manage to control it soon. Pray for lots of rain.
Used to live in N.B. and was closely involved with the fire bombing there so know what the guys fighting the fire are going thru.

 

I can watch a fire going on right now through the window at work ..............they've been water bombing the hell out of it for the last to days (2 bombers going steady)...........looks like they'll get it it's pretty much out now

 

Alberta too.....we are also in the middle of a grasshopper infestation. We sure could use some rain.

 

Just read an update on the BC fires. Man, it sure looks bad. Worst fire in 50 years. 8,500 evacuated in the Thompson-Nicole-Okanagan area. Another 1000 in the Hillcrest area and more in other places. A mill burnt down. 380 square hectares burnt so far. And the list goes on. Wonder when it will end. From what I understand there is no chance of rain either.

 

you can have some of our rain!!! it feels like a tropical rain forest cant remember when we had so many thunder and lightening storms. and i have been doing harbor patrol. lightening on the water is not a good thing since you r usually the highes point unless the guy next to u is taller or has a bigger boat.

 

Thought of the BC guys a few minutes ago. We just had a tropical downpour. From no rain to huge sheets of water pouring off the roof in about four minutes. No kidding. In less than 10 minutes we had a wide river down each side of the road. A rain like that would dampen any fire. 15 minutes of this and it was gone. About normal for here.

 

sure could have used that rain... They don't expect any for at least the next 10 days
this sucks... I like heading out into the bush and doing a bit of fishing, but I don't feel it would be wise at this point. I feel I could accidently start a fire (hot muffler on dry grass) or get stuck behind a fast moving fire started by another source.
I used to live in Kamloops, It is a dry "desert" like climate around there. I can well imagine how dry it is there now.

 

I just talked to my Parents who live in Oliver in the Okanogan...they say that even though it's been 100F daily for last two weeks, there is so much soot in the air that the sun's full intensity isn't being felt. They said that there is ash covering everything and the sky is an eerie red/orange color every afternoon.

 

Quoted from a news article, if true... Fires start in the stupidest ways...
That poor fellow will probably need help. I wonder if he'll stop smoking as a result...

 

You silly canucks and your metric system

How many acres in a hectare? What the hec is a hectare?
Forgive my ignorance, in California we use the "old" system.

What kind of fuels are burning up there? Is it timber? Chapparal? Grass?

 

[quote author=Cowhand link=board=10;threadid=17875;start=0#msg167903 date=1060009929]
How many acres in a hectare? [/quote]

1 hectare = 2.4710538 acres

Kyle

 

mostly pine trees with bunch grass underneath. It isn't "tall" timber the trees at most would be approx 40 feet. the bunch grass would be about 6-8' tall.
Quite a few families don't have homes to go back to. Last I heard on Sunday night, the police still aren't letting the people back home to see.

 

40' is plenty tall enough. The bunch grass sounds pretty high at 6' to 8', these are ladder fuels that cause the ground fire to get into the "crown" of the trees. Running crown fires are pretty tough, all you can do is try to fall enough trees to slow it down and hit the trees ahead with retardant. This is what essentially happened at Yellowstone years back, hence the wall of fire you might have seen in the pictures.

We're looking at a potential for the same thing here in So. California. The pines on the coastal range have been ravaged by the bark beetle, die off is as high as 50% in some areas, with 80-100 trees per acre. Fairly heavily populated for a mountain area as well. Can't cut the trees down fast enough, and with the recent state budget impasse there's no money to pay for it ayways.

Looks like a bad season coming.......

 

The trees immediately around Barrier isn't a bug kill, but we have parts of the province that are devastated by the pine beetle.

We'll only know how bad it really is when it is all over. I don't think most people realize (at least around these parts) how serious and dangerous the problem is.