The pine beetle not being dealt with in the late 90's which led to the death of pine forests is a huge contributor to this, along with forest management practices. The long term forest industry isn't very good, many mills have shut down, and many jobs have been lost. The forest fires of recent years are accelerating that. Ultimately it is all very sad to see the forests devastated and people suffering. Lessons from the past (like the 2003 Kelowna fires) haven't been taken seriously enough.
There is little to no high angle forestry in that part of the interior. It's effectively inoperable with the tree type on those kinds of slopes.
Pine beetle yes, fire suppression maybe and hell no to forest management.
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Pretty bad out there, trains are barely running as well. I watched the adams lake fire start in late July. It was just a little puff of smoke, which slowly got bigger and bigger every day. I feel like they could have dealt with it much sooner, which makes me wonder what the government spends their money on. Now half of Chase is on fire I think.
Raging fires are the new norm here. I think it's time canada invests heavily in fire bombers and have a proper fire lookout system in place. I drove across the border to Washington state mid July and there was a fire that had just started and was still small. They don't F around down there, there was a fleet of fire bombers dropping water non stop right from the get go.
Don't get me wrong, I think there's some climate change going on, and I know fighting fires is tough, let alone finding people to do it. But the government should be better prepared, it's not like this is the first year this is happening. I guess insurance companies will be getting involved. If im not mistaken they were responsible for starting the cloud seeding around calgary to prevent hail damage. I don't see how this is much different?
We were out in Blind Bay at the end of July and saw the fire too. I might be remembering wrong but was there the fire out by Kamloops at the same time? I could see putting the resources to fighting that one since Adams lake wasn't threatening anything at that point.
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Originally Posted by calgaryblood
Looks like you'll need one long before I will. May I suggest deflection king?
To be fair, I think the BCWS was totally overwhelmed with the fires up north when the ones down south got established, and with not enough equipment and personnel, were only able to respond to those immediately threatening structures and locations. Then they got out of hand.
The RapAttack guys (mostly) are amazing at stopping small spot fires...they chopper in, rappel down and do what they need to. It's harrowing and dangerous work.
Then you have the idiots who are told to leave who don't and stay with their garden hoses to "protect" their houses and then need to be evac'd by even more folks risking their lives to save the idiots. Really, really stupid. Has happened a number of times now.
How's the wind, Chris? Humidity is up based on the weather app.
winds were pretty mellow by our place place yesterday afternoon and evening - so that was good! my wife actually mentioned that after dinner - but then checked something on her phone and it said the winds were around 26kph.
one weird thing with the valley is how different the weather can be in different parts of the city. apparently it has to do with how okanagan lake changes direction right around kelowna. coming from peachland the lake comes from the south west, but right at kelowna it heads north - the cold body of water with the valley mountains can make for quite different weather in different parts of kelowna.
we live in the 'upper mission' area - which is in the south end of the city. my mom is in east kelowna and is only about 10 minutes away from us. she'll get dumped on with rain/hail and we will have blue skies - that scenario happens quite a bit. i believe the weather station is out by ubco (at least it used to be) so what it is reporting vs what we're seeing at our place 20km away can be quite different.
it's a 3-hour time lapse of the fire on the westside from thursday night. the video was filmed from the end of clifton road - which was one of the first roads evacuated when the fire jumped the lake.
the boats you can see going to the westside of the lake were were boat owners and fire rescue boats going to get people that had to flee the fire by going into the lake
we were discussing the idea of fire fighting boats yesterday - when you watch that video of an entire mountain range engulfed in fire a few fire boats aren't going to do a darn thing
__________________ "...and there goes Finger up the middle on Luongo!" - Jim Hughson, Av's vs. 'Nucks
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To be fair, I think the BCWS was totally overwhelmed with the fires up north when the ones down south got established, and with not enough equipment and personnel, were only able to respond to those immediately threatening structures and locations. Then they got out of hand.
The RapAttack guys (mostly) are amazing at stopping small spot fires...they chopper in, rappel down and do what they need to. It's harrowing and dangerous work.
Then you have the idiots who are told to leave who don't and stay with their garden hoses to "protect" their houses and then need to be evac'd by even more folks risking their lives to save the idiots. Really, really stupid. Has happened a number of times now.
we heard this exact situation on the scanner play out numerous times thursday night.
check the video in the link i posted in my previous post... a garden hose vs a 100'+ tall wall of fire
__________________ "...and there goes Finger up the middle on Luongo!" - Jim Hughson, Av's vs. 'Nucks
We actually bought a portable air purifier a few years back when in Vernon area and it was smoky, use it inside on smoky days, and take it on our road trips to BC. Makes a big difference
We have an IQAir air purifier. Current price is $1,300 so it’s no small purchase but it’s as powerful as an Oilers’ power play. It’s also large so you’re not traveling with it; stands 33 inches tall. We run it all day long. I have environmental allergies so smoke would be a problem.
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Ya, definitely don't take the hot spots map as an indication something burned. It's lower resolution data and more of a "fire in the area" indicator.
Some of the maps out there are fire maps and some are heat maps, especially satellite shots. Red spots on some heat maps could potentially have no fire under them. It could just be heat from flying embers and smoke. It was a little confusing at first, but it makes sense.
Just wondering if it applies for those, "the map has it in red, but it doesn't seem like there's a fire there." Comments.
Our air quality is currently the worst on the planet, and it’s not even close
You likely don’t need us to tell you this, but our current air quality is beyond horrendous.
Try to stay indoors as much as possible in the foreseeable future and if you need to go outdoors, consider wearing some sort of mask.
A special air quality statement is in effect from Environment Canada and the agency lists air quality in the Okanagan, Shuswap and Thompsons regions as 10+, which is “very high risk.”
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For a more in depth look at how bad the air quality is, we can turn to IQAir, which shows the US AQI figure for these regions as mostly between 400-500.
Anything over 150 is considered “very unhealthy” and levels as high as we’re seeing locally today are very hazardous to health.
Some of the maps out there are fire maps and some are heat maps, especially satellite shots. Red spots on some heat maps could potentially have no fire under them. It could just be heat from flying embers and smoke. It was a little confusing at first, but it makes sense.
Just wondering if it applies for those, "the map has it in red, but it doesn't seem like there's a fire there." Comments.
Ya, this is was captured as the fire moved over the lake. Wild the satellites captured it, they must have been flaming chunks big enough to detect.
Spoiler!
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normal view from our deck and what it looked like about 10 minutes ago at 5:20pm. (today's was taken from inside becuz i'm not going out in the smoke unless i absolutely have to)
fire fighters in a back yard fighting the forest fire from friday night. this was on the kelowna fire - how bad is it that i have to specify which forest fire it is they are fighting
__________________ "...and there goes Finger up the middle on Luongo!" - Jim Hughson, Av's vs. 'Nucks
We have an IQAir air purifier. Current price is $1,300 so it’s no small purchase but it’s as powerful as an Oilers’ power play. It’s also large so you’re not traveling with it; stands 33 inches tall. We run it all day long. I have environmental allergies so smoke would be a problem.
I would assume it makes a constant whining noise? My purifier is silent and that seems like a huge feature!
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In this day of age, these first-hand personal videos in 4K quality really make you feel the fear and uncertainty of all the people who are there experiencing it right now. This video is right before the fire jumped the lake.
6:45 is frightening as you see a fire start right beside a cluster of homes and you know there is no hope for them.
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Given that we had the worst air quality in the world yesterday (and possibly worse this morning) we decided to pack up and head to Calgary. Got the camper and car loaded about 1 pm and left our beautiful place in the North OK. We were finding that the smoke had invaded our house and no matter the filtration or anything else it kept setting off the fire alarms ("carbon monoxide") but more importantly, given that we are only about 3 weeks post-COVID (thanks, kids!)...our lungs were suffering in a way we didn't want to continue.
So off to Calgary.
Interesting note: 2 out of every 5 cars/personal trucks/RVs coming INTO BC were...Albertans. Are they stupid or just don't give two #####s? Beats me.
Edit: yes, I counted, thanks to a certain amount of OCD.
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Hey...where'd my avatar go?
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We were out in Blind Bay at the end of July and saw the fire too. I might be remembering wrong but was there the fire out by Kamloops at the same time? I could see putting the resources to fighting that one since Adams lake wasn't threatening anything at that point.
Yeah I think that one's been going since mid July as well.
Given that we had the worst air quality in the world yesterday (and possibly worse this morning) we decided to pack up and head to Calgary. Got the camper and car loaded about 1 pm and left our beautiful place in the North OK. We were finding that the smoke had invaded our house and no matter the filtration or anything else it kept setting off the fire alarms ("carbon monoxide") but more importantly, given that we are only about 3 weeks post-COVID (thanks, kids!)...our lungs were suffering in a way we didn't want to continue.
So off to Calgary.
Interesting note: 2 out of every 5 cars/personal trucks/RVs coming INTO BC were...Albertans. Are they stupid or just don't give two #####s? Beats me.
Edit: yes, I counted, thanks to a certain amount of OCD.
Rebel News probably didn't report on the wildfires, so they likely didn't know any better.
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