Monday, August 31, 2009

Wildfires Interrupting the Urban Experience

A dry lightning storm is a storm where the rain never reaches the ground. It evaporates in midair, trailing down from swollen cumulus clouds in long, graceful strands called virga. The electrical charges from a dry storm do not trail off before they hit the ground, however; they rip into the mountains like artillery.*
In British Columbia, there are over 140 active fires in the Interior, with 146 fires throughout the province itself. Most of the fires, however, are located in the Kamloops area, northeast of Vancouver. It has been an unusual summer of very hot, very dry weather. Anticipated rain simply has not materialized. And very hot atmospheric conditions have prevailed. Vancouver does not normally experience temperatures of 30-Celsius, day upon day, and it has this year.

Thousands of residents were forced to leave their homes for safety away from the blazes, over the past two months. The province's Forests Minister has cautioned B.C. residents that "There is a high likelihood that we will see new lightning-caused fires arise in the southern portion of the province and that existing fires will begin to exhibit extreme fire behaviour."

The valued and immensely valuable forests of British Columbia have been under siege thanks to the Mountain Pine Beetle, which has wrought havoc in the forests of both Alberta and British Columbia. A warmer-than-anticipated winter in the interior failed to kill off the beetle larvae and they surged into destructive force, killing off valuable timber.

Now the wildfires have, and are continuing to take their toll. The province sets aside $62-million annually to fight forest fires. This year over $253-million has been spent to date, fighting the wildfires that refuse to allow themselves to be controlled through the efforts of fire crews.
Most fires are slow moving, and fighting them is closer to hoeing a garden than being in combat, but when fires blow up, they move with awesome fury, and if people aren't prepared, they die.*
Every year at about this time in California, wildfires blast through the mountains and foothill areas of the State, sending thousands of residents in those crowded areas away from their homes, many of which will be burned to the ground, despite the best efforts of fire-fighting crews, determined to bring those fires under control. A fire vehicle with two seasoned firefighters tumbled off the side of a mountain today, killing both men.
"Probably the worst thing that's happening now is what's called urban interface - that is, houses in the forest. When it's a question of saving structures rather than just trees, we're more likely to take risks. Basically, if you're protecting a structure and the fire's coming at you, you don't retreat. You stay put and try to work the fire around either side."
Thousands of people have been evacuated to safety, leaving 12,500 buildings at risk in the heat-driven fires that have doubled in size overnight, according to news reports. Some 14,000 hectares of bone-dry brush in the mountains towering above no fewer than five heavily-populated towns in a 26-kilometre stretch from La Crescenta to Pasadena, are in the fires' sights.

"These fires are still totally out of control. This is a huge and is a very dangerous fire. The fire is moving very close to homes and to structures", California State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger informed news media.
The drier the fuels, the hotter they burn and the faster the fires spread, and fuel moisture levels that should be at 15 or 20 percent are down in the single numbers. Low relative humidity and unstable air (wind) compound the problem. Fires are generally slow-moving creatures, moving a few chains an hour. But sometimes they can explode up a hillside or across a canyon, and the mountains all around... scorched by... drought are likely... to produce such behaviour. *
One supposes the situation somewhat resembles houses built in a flood-plain, falling victim to rising waters resulting in abnormal conditions that create cresting floods that wreak destruction on human habitation. Why is it, some might enquire, that despite the continual episodes of wildfires in these areas, people insist on building their homes there, and then suffer the trauma of flight and potential loss of home?

The allure of living close to nature. By a species grown arrogant that they have the means to control nature. And we simply do not learn by our sad experiences.

* All excerpts from FIRE by Sebastian Junger

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