2010 fire season

[sprucebunny]

I could smell smoke all over the valley here this morning. Turns out there is a big forest fire in Quebec.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/05/27/wemotaci-fire-evacuation.html

We also had fire warnings in this area because of very low humidity and high wind. The land is unusually dry. Little trickles that have always seeped out of the woods are missing this spring. I hope the prediction of rain for this coming week comes thru.

[Tom]

Would that be "French Smoke?"  Hmm  That  makes it sound like a tourist attraction.  :D

In all seriousness, wildfire is no laughing matter.  I feel sorry for those who are losing  homes or are kept from going home.  Here's hoping that that injuries are minimal.

[fuzzybear]

   over 5000 hectare burning here with no rain. We had a lot of dry storms last night, so maybe more is burning today. It's going to be a long summer in the north.
   So bad in Alaska right now they sent Canadian bombers to help in Tok, Alaska.

[stonebroke]

The Adirondacks have smoke from a fire burning north of Montreal.

Stonebroke

[breederman]

My daughter said it is smokey in Plattsburgh.

[SwampDonkey]

We are getting rain here today. We get some dry spells, but never for long in this part of Canada. ;D Been brushing since April and the land I been working on has lots of water around. ;)

One summer we had smoke from one of those Quebec fires, I think it must have been north of Quebec city at the time. It was quite heavy smoke to.

[woodtroll]

I just got this as par of an email,
"Alaska had 193 fires for a total of 98,163 acres burned by the end of May in 2009.  On the last day of May in 2010, we are at 261 fires for 260,024 acres burned."
Sounds like conditions are dry up there.
I hope everyone has a careful and safe year.

[Ron Scott]

Trial by Fire: Remembering the Big Blowup of 1910

Flathead Beacon (Montana, July 22) - 2010 is the 100-year anniversary of the Great Fire of 1910, also referred to as the Big Burn or Big Blowup, a complex of massive wildfires that burned 3 million acres in northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. Collectively, they formed the largest wildfire recorded in US history. At least 85 people were killed, including 78 firefighters, and five towns were destroyed.

http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/trial_by_fire/18723/

[Ron Scott]

Judge Rejects Forest Service's Plan on Fire Retardant

The New York Times, Published by William Yardley, July 28th

A federal judge has ruled that the federal Forest Service's plan for using fire retardant to fight wildfires violates the law because it does not ensure protections for threatened and endangered species of fish and other animals.

Dropped from airplanes and helicopters, reddish clouds of retardant are often the most visible tool used to fight wildfires, particularly in rugged areas of the West. Yet chemicals in the most common retardants can hurt wildlife, particularly when they miss their mark. In some cases, large numbers of fish have been killed when retardant has been dropped into lakes and streams. To read more of this article link to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29wildfires.html?_r=3&ref=science

[ibseeker]

Now that makes a lot of sense! What's worse for the animals/fish? Fire retardant or fire? If you don't stop the fire, there will be no habitat for the animals and the water will be heavily polluted by runoff. Not to mention those animals simply burned to death. At least he gave them a chance to fix it by 2011. There's more to this than the simplified answer I tossed out there. I understand that one of the components of aerial dropped fire retardant is fertilizer and even that causes problems because of the high nitrogen content.