Fires!

[JeanCretien]

Originally Posted by CBintheNorth

It can definitely happen.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QwQJ-3pZfwc

Maybe that's another reason the Turd uses one of the cardboard box drink thingies.

How dare you!


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[Peace Meal Farm]

Evac orders for Hay River, NWT : /

[Grizzly Adams1]

Plant trees, stop logging, save the environment.

Grizz

[Ackleyman]

Wondering what Alberta has as far as Airplanes designed to fight Fires ? I know there are logistics regarding where they can load , land and take-off from but all i see is helicopters with buckets. The Province has had some VERY bad fires such as Slave lake , Fort Mac and now all these. I feel very sorry for all impacted , watching the news it's just brutal. Would more specialized aircraft help ? Instead of all these big ass politicians blowing their horns and making BS promises maybe they could put some money where its obviously needed purchasing this equipment or paying a contractor to operate X amount of aircraft ?? Would be costly but not as costly as what has happened and what is happening now.

[dodgeboy1979]

Originally Posted by Ackleyman

Wondering what Alberta has as far as Airplanes designed to fight Fires ? I know there are logistics regarding where they can load , land and take-off from but all i see is helicopters with buckets. The Province has had some VERY bad fires such as Slave lake , Fort Mac and now all these. I feel very sorry for all impacted , watching the news it's just brutal. Would more specialized aircraft help ? Instead of all these big ass politicians blowing their horns and making BS promises maybe they could put some money where its obviously needed purchasing this equipment or paying a contractor to operate X amount of aircraft ?? Would be costly but not as costly as what has happened and what is happening now.

https://www.alberta.ca/assets/docume...oup-set-up.pdf

here is the info on Alberta's fleet of aircraft for wildfires.

[lannie]

Originally Posted by Ackleyman

Wondering what Alberta has as far as Airplanes designed to fight Fires ? I know there are logistics regarding where they can load , land and take-off from but all i see is helicopters with buckets. The Province has had some VERY bad fires such as Slave lake , Fort Mac and now all these. I feel very sorry for all impacted , watching the news it's just brutal. Would more specialized aircraft help ? Instead of all these big ass politicians blowing their horns and making BS promises maybe they could put some money where its obviously needed purchasing this equipment or paying a contractor to operate X amount of aircraft ?? Would be costly but not as costly as what has happened and what is happening now.

The biggest bills are generated by people and equipment sitting on fire watch in anticipation of fires. Massive amounts of cash spent when all the planes, helis, heavy equipment and people are are sitting.... That's what all the contractors want. Be paid 80% of full rate and not burning a drop of fuel. Things that fly can be anywhere pretty quick.

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by Ackleyman

Wondering what Alberta has as far as Airplanes designed to fight Fires ? I know there are logistics regarding where they can load , land and take-off from but all i see is helicopters with buckets. The Province has had some VERY bad fires such as Slave lake , Fort Mac and now all these. I feel very sorry for all impacted , watching the news it's just brutal. Would more specialized aircraft help ? Instead of all these big ass politicians blowing their horns and making BS promises maybe they could put some money where its obviously needed purchasing this equipment or paying a contractor to operate X amount of aircraft ?? Would be costly but not as costly as what has happened and what is happening now.

They would help but really weather conditions are the biggest factor and depending on the smoke it can even limit the use of aircraft

The biggest thing that can limit the number of fires is people need to use their heads during dry conditions but this still won’t stop natural causes like lightning or uncontrollable accidents

Really once a fire reaches a certain size it’s tough to stop especially with the present conditions. The best way to improve in the future is educating the public and possibly improving initial response to fires in hopes to catch them early enough so they can be put out.

Unfortunately big fires like many of the present ones can only be contained till they burn out but that still needs mother nature’s help

[Stinky Buffalo]

On one hand, some of this land does need to burn, so much of our bush is a tangled mess.

Maybe this will convince at-risk municipalities to put a concerted effort into creating substantial fire breaks.

[Dark Wing]

I feel for Edson and their sawmill. I heard that they lost a big chunk of there FMA to the fires possibly 30 years worth of production.

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams1

Plant trees, stop logging, save the environment.

Grizz

Anybody with any sense knows that is not how nature works.
Cat

[Who Da Fisherman]

Originally Posted by Ackleyman

Wondering what Alberta has as far as Airplanes designed to fight Fires ? I know there are logistics regarding where they can load , land and take-off from but all i see is helicopters with buckets. The Province has had some VERY bad fires such as Slave lake , Fort Mac and now all these. I feel very sorry for all impacted , watching the news it's just brutal. Would more specialized aircraft help ? Instead of all these big ass politicians blowing their horns and making BS promises maybe they could put some money where its obviously needed purchasing this equipment or paying a contractor to operate X amount of aircraft ?? Would be costly but not as costly as what has happened and what is happening now.

They had been using planes to fill up at Buck lake South for the Drayton fire for awhile. Lots of posts/pics on Buck lake FB.
WDF

[Big Grey Wolf]

Alberta had number of contractors with large fleets of heavy duty water bombers. Now as I understand we have almost none except those little float planes that might pick up a barrel or two of water. You probably are better off just whipping something out. The province has been very neglagent in fire fighting capabilty "now the chickens will come home to roost" for this incompetent government.

[Stinky Buffalo]

“

Some Albertans are defying evacuation orders and trying to fight the flames on their own to protect their homes and livestock. They say provincial cuts and sparse resources have left them with no other “

https://youtu.be/qyu0h-oGkX8

[ghfalls]

Trudeau is headed to Asia today. Likely will give away hundreds of millions of dollars with nothing to show for it that could pay for a whole fleet of water bombers.

[elkhunter11]

Originally Posted by Big Grey Wolf

Alberta had number of contractors with large fleets of heavy duty water bombers. Now as I understand we have almost none except those little float planes that might pick up a barrel or two of water. You probably are better off just whipping something out. The province has been very neglagent in fire fighting capabilty "now the chickens will come home to roost" for this incompetent government.

And the cuts started before the UCP, when Notley cut $15M from the budget in 2016.

[DoePolicyAnalyst]

Originally Posted by Big Grey Wolf

Alberta had number of contractors with large fleets of heavy duty water bombers. Now as I understand we have almost none except those little float planes that might pick up a barrel or two of water. You probably are better off just whipping something out. The province has been very neglagent in fire fighting capabilty "now the chickens will come home to roost" for this incompetent government.

I don't know where you are getting your information from, but it is not true at all. The link above shows that the province has 4 L-188s under contract, which are very large aircraft capable of dropping 3000 US gal of fire retardant, which is one of the largest in Canada.

There is one group of 'little float planes' that pick up water and one group of small air tractors, which have a different use and capability than the L-188s. The float plants are small, yes, but they can scoop up off much smaller sources of water than the 215Ts and don't have to return to air tanker bases for retardant, so there is value in how many drops they can make in the same time it takes for one of the larger craft to turn around and get refilled.

For the 215T, they can scoop around 1300 US gal of water (or be loaded with fire retardant), which is a slight bit more than 'a barrel or two of water.' but usually stay in northern AB where you find the larger water bodies to scoop off.

This set-up has been used for many years (minus the CV580s, which have been retired, the seem to have added more L-188s instead) under multiple governments, so there is no 'incompetence' on the part of the current government in managing these contracts.

[MountainTi]

Originally Posted by Big Grey Wolf

Alberta had number of contractors with large fleets of heavy duty water bombers. Now as I understand we have almost none except those little float planes that might pick up a barrel or two of water. You probably are better off just whipping something out. The province has been very neglagent in fire fighting capabilty "now the chickens will come home to roost" for this incompetent government.

There were 2 large ones flying over here a couple weeks ago for a couple days working on a fire by Crammond. Bombers will come in from other provinces when needed. Same as helicopters. They move province to province where they are needed. Be a bunch of BC 212's in Alberta right now as we speak

[MountainTi]

Originally Posted by lannie

The biggest bills are generated by people and equipment sitting on fire watch in anticipation of fires. Massive amounts of cash spent when all the planes, helis, heavy equipment and people are are sitting.... That's what all the contractors want. Be paid 80% of full rate and not burning a drop of fuel. Things that fly can be anywhere pretty quick.

No they don't. They want hours of flying time. Not just a couple or four (used to know what it was, can't remember off the top of my head right now) standby hours. I know and have worked with a lot of pilots and company owners

[Anvil1010]

Originally Posted by lannie

The biggest bills are generated by people and equipment sitting on fire watch in anticipation of fires. Massive amounts of cash spent when all the planes, helis, heavy equipment and people are are sitting.... That's what all the contractors want. Be paid 80% of full rate and not burning a drop of fuel. Things that fly can be anywhere pretty quick.

You don't get paid 80% of your full rate, you get 65%. Which is still good for doing nothing but don't throw numbers around that are wrong.

[Grizzly Adams1]

I keep watching the news and see abandoned towns closely surrounded by trees and bush. We've got no end of industrial equipment in this province, would it not make sense to bulldoze fire breaks around these towns ? Just Asking.

Grizz

[IronNoggin]

Just broke 36 C on the back deck.

Fort St, John now under an Evacuation Alert:

https://www.fortstjohn.ca/EN/index/e...tion-page.html

[Manning74]

I had 4 water Bombers flying tree top height over my house coming off the lake yesterday afternoon/ evening fighting a fire south of me . Grizzly ridge fire and house mountain are just blazing this afternoon, there was hardly any smoke on my way to a job in slave this morning. Smoke was brutal top of prechuck hill on my way home, going to get smoky in slave this evening im thinking.

[1hogfarmer]

13k hectares, 6200 without power. Evacuation order north of FSJ, and town is on notice.

[Penner]

Wind switching direction overnight from SE to NW. It has been SE for a few weeks now uncertain if that will have the fires blowing back to what has already burned. Unfortunately it will be gusting to NW 50km tomorrow which can’t be great.

You can see the smoke cloud just west of Edmonton this evening. Suspect city will be engulfed in smoke tomorrow.

Prayers out there for those in the evac zones.

[Dick284]

Essential service employees are allowed back to DV as of this evening. Only the employee, and you must basically shelter in place unless working. This is the beginning of the end of the evacuation for DV. The hospital, grocery stores and pharmacies need to be functional before the throngs of inhabitants come back.

[fishnguy]

Have to drive Peace River to Edmonton on Thursday morning. Looking at the smoke map, it looks about the same at the moment, whether a guy goes through Slave Lake or Whitecourt. No services Valleyview to Whitecourt, which is fine. What say you who travelled in the past couple of days?

Edit: Looked at the alleged wind change on Wednesday and Thursday, and 43 might get closed altogether.

[JohninAB]

Originally Posted by Big Grey Wolf

Alberta had number of contractors with large fleets of heavy duty water bombers. Now as I understand we have almost none except those little float planes that might pick up a barrel or two of water. You probably are better off just whipping something out. The province has been very neglagent in fire fighting capabilty "now the chickens will come home to roost" for this incompetent government.

Once again, a post based on something other than the facts!

[-JR-]

Smoke has finally it Edmonton today May 16

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by Dick284

Essential service employees are allowed back to DV as of this evening. Only the employee, and you must basically shelter in place unless working. This is the beginning of the end of the evacuation for DV. The hospital, grocery stores and pharmacies need to be functional before the throngs of inhabitants come back.

Things are at least moving in the right direction now

Wife has some phone meetings regarding over the next 48hrs regarding re entry so who knows she might be brought back early or waiting for the masses depending on how it goes

[graybeard]

I am in the the north end of Calgary, and the smoke came in overnight. It is felt in my lungs and the sun is a bright orange.

On bended knee; I feel so sorry for the people up north.....

Take care and good luck...