Major Grass Fires

[return to the red]

pff that's not a grass fire

sincerely,
Lethbridge

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by missdpuck

Hope you guys are all okay.

Yeah, other than the wind blowing all the smoke right in our direction everything was fine. I don't think there was any property damage to structures, although it wasn't far off from several homes.

[bc-chris]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Just did run to bank... on Glenmore, between Macleod and Deerfoot, saw 2 people throwing smokes out windows....

I say Deerfoot will be next.

don't they have fines for people throwing cigarette butts out of vehicles? i know they do in bc. they just did a story on it in the local news - they want people to call 911 and report the license plate of the vehicle

i'll never forget back in the summer of 2003 in kelowna. we had just evacuated my folks from their house becuz of the okanagan mountain park forest fire and my dad and i are driving down the highway and the dude in front of us empties his ash tray out the window, glowing embers blowing everywhere - i was absolutely livid

[troutman]

Drove by the fire southbound on Sarcee around 3:00 pm.

Northbound was closed down, which seemed like a bit of an overreaction. The fire wasn't that big, there were plenty of fire trucks, and lots of room for them off the shoulder. Maybe it was worse earlier?

[Joborule]

I actually passed by it earlier right around 1 PM and thought it was a controlled fire. Heading back up northbound at 3PM and the traffic backup said otherwise. I'm loving this heat, but could use some rain right now to get some moisture.

[Caged Great]

So, I was playing with Google maps to try and calculate the distance and it ended up being only about 200-250 meters away at the closest point. Fun.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by bc-chris

don't they have fines for people throwing cigarette butts out of vehicles? i know they do in bc.

Yes. I think it's $500 for a spent butt, $1000 for a live one.

they just did a story on it in the local news - they want people to call 911 and report the license plate of the vehicle

Then I get the distracted driving ticket for calling it in....

Originally Posted by troutman

Drove by the fire southbound on Sarcee around 3:00 pm.

Northbound was closed down, which seemed like a bit of an overreaction. The fire wasn't that big, there were plenty of fire trucks, and lots of room for them off the shoulder. Maybe it was worse earlier?

Yes it was; not so much the fire itself, but the smoke interfering with traffic. I think they figured "let's just get the traffic off of there so emergency vehicles could zip up and down freely"

There is a very cool time elapsed video here:
http://globalnews.ca/news/552336/bre...hwest-calgary/

About halfway down page.

[killer_carlson]

My cousins outside of Edmonton almost lost their house three years ago in a bush fire. They were literally pulled out in the night and the fire went through their acreage and melted the siding off their house. Mit came within twenty feet or so. They tracked the fire back to its origen and it started in a ditch next to the highway, possibly a cigarette butt. I think there were three homes destroyed. Tossing a lit butt out is so dangerous.

As for cigarette butts in planters, a multimillion dollar fire in Edmonton started in a planter on the balcony of a condo. Huge loss, years of litigation followed as some fire precautions in the build may not have been huilt properly. The cigarette smoldered in the peaty soil of the pot and eventually caught fire. One of the interesting theories is that th source of the cigarette butt was from a higher unit who tossed the cigarette over the balcony and it blew back into a balcony that had a planter.

Most smokers are responsible and clean up after themselves, but he few that dont need some serious public and peer pressure to smarten up.

[mrkajz44]

The Millrise condo fire that occurred about 3 years ago was caused by a butt in a planter on one balcony. I live in the complex and we went through a few steps to try and get person who caused the fire to be somewhat responsible; someone snapped a pic that clearly showed which unit started the fire. Basically we were told there was nothing we could do. This still makes me angry every time I think about it - there should be some sort of arson type charge any time something like this happens