Fort Mac is Burning, entire city under evacuation order

[Sid Vicious]

do they have any idea what caused the fire?

and tough year for alberta's economy, first oil price tanks then this lol

[swiftshift]

Absolutely insane.

[pastarocket]

If Crusty and the Liberals actually care about British Columbia and the risk of wildfires like the shit storm in Fort Mac now, the provincial government must do much more work in clearing the undergrowth that builds up in our forests over the years. I am talking about dead trees, branches, etc. the potential fuel sources that can start dangerous wildfires in the summer. The Liberals in BC need much more preventative measures in forest management to be done quickly to lower the risk of big wildfires from happening in BC forests.

Less time campaigning for LNG and more time and resources spent on preventing forest fires, Crusty.

[murd0c]

is there any word on how much of Fort Mac the fire destroyed yet?

[underscore]

^ some neighbourhoods are apparently 90+% gone already. Have they been able to fully evac everyone yet or are some people still stuck on the roads?

[unit]

Originally Posted by murd0c

is there any word on how much of Fort Mac the fire destroyed yet?

this morning they kept saying 1600 buildings destroyed.

[underscore]

NASA just shared this on Facebook:

Originally Posted by NASA

Wildfire Spreads in Fort McMurray

On May 4, 2016, the the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on the Landsat 7 satellite acquired this false-color image of the wildfire that burned through Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. The image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (bands 5-4-2). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal the hot spots associated with active fires, which appear red. Smoke appears white and burned areas appear brown.

Wildfire Spreads in Fort McMurray : Natural Hazards

[pastarocket]

Originally Posted by murd0c

is there any word on how much of Fort Mac the fire destroyed yet?

Global News reported this morning that the wildfires destroyed up to 85,000 hectares of Fort Mac.

[Hondaracer]

Will be interesting to see what happens going forward.

Fort Mac's infrastructure has been built up to this point over the past 30+ years, with oil at such a low I'm wondering how much motivation there will be to rebuild

[SkunkWorks]

Couple buddies of mine organized a delivery of supplies from Edmonton. Really awesome to see people come together in times like this.

[JSALES]

Westjet flew patients out to Edmonton

Fort McMurray hospital staff move patients to safety, some flown on WestJet planes to Edmonton | CTV News

[sdubfid]

Originally Posted by pastarocket

If Crusty and the Liberals actually care about British Columbia and the risk of wildfires like the shit storm in Fort Mac now, the provincial government must do much more work in clearing the undergrowth that builds up in our forests over the years. I am talking about dead trees, branches, etc. the potential fuel sources that can start dangerous wildfires in the summer. The Liberals in BC need much more preventative measures in forest management to be done quickly to lower the risk of big wildfires from happening in BC forests.

Less time campaigning for LNG and more time and resources spent on preventing forest fires, Crusty.

You've got to be kidding they might as well pick up every rock while they're at it so nobody sprains an ankle.

[hud 91gt]

Fires happen. In fact it's part of nature. A fresh burn clears out old dead forest and promotes regrowth. In fact, so much that many forest fires are allowed to burn in non threat areas.

Having a good contract with some serious waters bombers and ground crews will keep the cities from burning down. Sometimes the weather overcomes the defense mechanisms and you get this.

My buddy flys one of the big bombers up there right now. He literally finished initial training for the season, the day prior to being called out to this. Their contract work wasn't supposed to start for 2 more weeks. This fire hit early in the season, they are lucky as many crews were able to get there as it is.

It's sucks, but it's Mother Nature.

[melloman]

With the amount of fires and such in BC/Alberta/Sask/Manitoba.. this should go to a federal level of the government where instead of F-35's doing fuck all, we construct massive waterbombing cargo planes.

Get Bombardier to make them as we keep bailing them out to begin with.

[Spoon]

Originally Posted by pastarocket

If Crusty and the Liberals actually care about British Columbia and the risk of wildfires like the shit storm in Fort Mac now, the provincial government must do much more work in clearing the undergrowth that builds up in our forests over the years. I am talking about dead trees, branches, etc. the potential fuel sources that can start dangerous wildfires in the summer. The Liberals in BC need much more preventative measures in forest management to be done quickly to lower the risk of big wildfires from happening in BC forests.

Less time campaigning for LNG and more time and resources spent on preventing forest fires, Crusty.

If she used that as part of her platform prior to this incident, you'd call her out as paranoid and wasting tax dollars. Preventative measures simply doesn't buy votes. Live with it.

[hud 91gt]

Originally Posted by melloman

With the amount of fires and such in BC/Alberta/Sask/Manitoba.. this should go to a federal level of the government where instead of F-35's doing fuck all, we construct massive waterbombing cargo planes.

Get Bombardier to make them as we keep bailing them out to begin with.

Bombardier makes the best amphibious bomber out there, the cl-415. It seems every province uses them except BC and Alberta(215 or 415). Big $$$$

[Reeyal]

Originally Posted by underscore

NASA just shared this on Facebook:

Wow, the wild fire took out a lot of areas of town. This is what Fort McMurray supposed to look like:

https://goo.gl/maps/vGELDcqJC1H2

[underscore]

^ for the lazy

FtMac.jpg

Looks like basically everything west of Hwy 63 is gone, but a bit of wind the wrong way could likely take out the rest of the city.

[Great68]

The Size of the Fort Mac Fire in relation to other cities:

[pastarocket]

Please, Mother Nature, stop the wind and bring heavy rain to Fort Mac.

[Digitalis]

Well whats really needed are controlled burns so you dont get out of control burns.

Originally Posted by sdubfid

You've got to be kidding they might as well pick up every rock while they're at it so nobody sprains an ankle.

[originalhypa]

Originally Posted by pastarocket

Please, Mother Nature, stop the wind and bring heavy rain to Fort Mac.

Well said.
I'm amazed every fall when the rain starts up again and the fire are extinguished. The province basically burns until late September when everything cools down again.

[meme405]

To be fair for those talking about preventing fires in BC. I was in the back country just outside merritt mountain biking this past week after work every day, and it seems like every night we would see 10-15 British Columbia trucks driving out from Range Road 18.

At 4 people in each vehicle there was conservatively 50 people in the bush all week clearing out undergrowth and conducting controlled burns to protect the area around Merritt and the Coq. You could see the work they had done as well, entire blocks of tree's had the area around them cleared out completely.

So it's not like the province here is doing nothing, if I caught these crews working in Merritt, I am sure there are others all over the province.

SIDE NOTE: All of the trucks were newer Dodge 1 ton's, crew cab, long box, diesel. Not a bad way to spend 500k crusty cunt...

[murd0c]

This is a great story to push all of the BS to the side for a bit!!

Fort McMurray Wildfire: Syrian refugees in Calgary pitch in to help | Calgary Herald

When Rita Khanchet saw images of a vicious wildfire destroying homes and uprooting tens of thousands in Fort McMurray, she immediately thought of Syria, the homeland she fled just five months ago with her husband and young son.

Khanchet and her family know firsthand how scary it is to leave a community, home and possessions behind and she was determined to help the people of Fort McMurray.

“It’s not easy to lose everything. We can understand them more than anyone in Canada. We were in the same situation,” said Khanchet, who lives in Calgary.

“Me and my family wanted to do something for these people. Canadian society helped us when we came to Canada.”

Syrian refugees across Calgary are now giving what little they have to northern Albertans, after Khanchet posted an appeal in Arabic on a private Facebook group the newcomers created and frequent.

“(Canadians) gave us everything. And now it’s time to return the favour,” she wrote.

A fellow Syrian refugee translated and shared Khanchet’s post with a wider community on the Syrian Refugee Support Group page and within hours offers of help came in from new Canadians determined to give back to their new home.

“All the Syrians are saying, ‘I’m ready to give, I’m ready to give,'” said Saima Jamal, a co-founder of the Syrian Refugee Support Group.

“It’s amazing. You have to understand how little these guys have…But they understand the idea of an entire city losing their home. That’s something they can easily relate to. They went through that.”

While some newcomers offered to donate their furniture or clothes (which were donated to them by generous Canadians just months ago), the group settled on collecting $5 from any Syrian who has it.

The funds are going towards purchasing hygiene items for evacuees from Fort McMurray, items the Syrian refugees received when they arrived in Canada just months ago through a group called 99 Hampers of Hope.

Khanchet said refugees of all ages who’ve settled in Calgary want to help the people of Fort McMurray.

Find out how you can help victims of the Fort McMurray wildfires.

When she told her five-year-old son Elie about what was happening in northern Alberta, he collected his toys and said he wanted to give them to other children who didn’t have toys.

“We understand what they’re feeling. When you lose everything, you have to start from zero. You lose your memories, your items. It’s not easy. It’s something very sad. We can totally understand their feeling,” Khanchet said.

“We are very thankful to the Canadian people and we want to be a part of this society. We will do our best to be a good part of this society. By doing that, maybe we can return a little bit of the great job that Canadian people did for us.”

[RRxtar]

if you think this is bad, wait until all that pine beetle killed timber really dries out.



combine that with the trend towards hotter summers, with much longer periods in between rain falls.