Smoke from the Canadian Wildfires

[TJC]

I stumbled upon this dynamic website that updates air quality around the USA. The smoke has creeped within 30 miles of my home, I actually smelled it this morning.

Here's a snapshot of what happening

If you zoom in you can see the seriousness of if. This is Richmond, VA! We are starting to see it in central NC.

Oxford is 20 miles from me and is now showing elevated levels.

You can check out your locale by accessing this Fire and Smoke Map link.

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[Big Blue]

Just wait the AQI hit 664 at my house here in Wisconsin. We're DOWN to mid-400s today. The sun is at least yellow again. It is so nice that Canada shares. I see Michigan is trying to sue Ontario for damages.

 

[AzScorpion]

This also happened years ago when I was still living in MA. I have asthma and it would choke you as soon as you'd walk outside. CA really needs to do a better job at forest management.


Maybe if everyone in the affected areas all ate large amounts of Poutine there'd be enough gas to blow the smoke away.

 

[got3fords]

Pretty heavy today here in Central Va. It actually kept the heat down some while I mowed the lawn. Yeah, wore a mask the whole time, which I often do anyway. Pollen, dust and dirt ain't good.

 

[TJC]

Yep, You guys are up the the 225 range (purple zone) over there. Which is "stay inside, or limit out door physical activity".

We are due south 200 miles and we've been in the mid 150 range (red zone). I actually smelled smoke in the air this morning when I got up.

Hopefully the winds change directions.

 

[Chris M]

My son lives in Danville, VA (near the NC line) and complained of smelling it today.

 

[CTYankee]

Here is some context from the Hudson Valley Weather FB page:

Want to take a moment to address some of the most frequent questions we have seen in the comment section over the last few days.

Forest Management Neglect
To understand this question, you have to understand where these fires are burning. In green is an area known as the Canadian Boreal Forest. In the second image is the location of active fires across Canada. As you can see, most are burning within this region.

Why is this important?

This forest is massive—on a scale that most of us can’t begin to comprehend. It is the largest intact forest ecosystem on the planet.
Additionally…
Canada’s boreal forest: ~1.3 billion acres (about 520 million hectares or 2 million square miles). It stretches from the Yukon to Newfoundland in an almost continuous belt.
Largest U.S. forest (Tongass National Forest, Alaska): 16.7 million acres.
Largest forest in the contiguous U.S. (Humboldt–Toiyabe National Forest): about 6.3 million acres.
All U.S. National Forests combined: about 193 million acres.
For perspective…
Canada’s boreal forest is roughly 78 times larger than the Tongass, the largest forest in the United States.
It’s roughly 7 times larger than all 154 U.S. National Forests combined.
It represents one of the largest intact forest ecosystems left on Earth, with vast areas that have no roads and are inaccessible except by aircraft or winter roads.
Less than 9% of Canada’s population lives within this region, and less than 1% of the boreal forest itself is developed.
Most of the boreal is remote, roadless, and inaccessible, making large-scale forest management and wildfire suppression fundamentally different from managing forests near populated areas in the U.S.

In ecosystems like the boreal forest, wildfire is one of nature’s primary management tools and has shaped these forests for thousands of years. While forest management absolutely has an important role near communities, roads, and other developed areas, applying that approach across more than a billion acres of largely roadless wilderness simply isn’t practical.

Canada doesn't control the weather or the prevailing winds, so anyone suing or threatening Canada has their head firmly lodged in their derriere.

 

[AzScorpion]

Here is some context from the Hudson Valley Weather FB page:



Canada doesn't control the weather or the prevailing winds, so anyone suing or threatening Canada has their head firmly lodged in their derriere.

While they don't control the weather they do control how well they manage their forest management. Just look at California's lack of forest management and what that's caused!

 

[CTYankee]

While they don't control the weather they do control how well they manage their forest management. Just look at California's lack of forest management and what that's caused!

I have to respectfully disagree, at least in part. No state has the resources to manage all forested land. All they can do is try to manage the areas that pose the most direct threat to people. Wind and weather can easily negate those efforts.

I lived in Los Angeles in the late 70's and early 80's and spent a lot of time in the canyon areas affected by the recent Los Angeles fires. The area is huge and the terrain is challenging, to say the least. People who've built there know the danger and CA has been very specific in what people need to do to protect their property from wildfires. Too many people don't do enough.

In Canada, a large portion of the wildfires are in remote areas with no infrastructure or roads.

Tangentially, the LA fires were made even worse by private equity consolidation of the fire apparatus industry. At the time of the fires, LAFD had 83 pumpers out of service. The REV Group owns most of the apparatus brands and most of the rest are owned by another private equity group. They have no incentive to increase production capacity because long back-order bookings have allowed them to increase prices on replacement trucks and makes their financials look good to Wall Street. Order backlogs are now stretching into 4 years, with most orders taking 3 years for fulfillment. LA needed those engines and couldn't get them.

My town in MA approved two new pumpers in May 2024 for $1M each, but we won't see them until sometime in 2027 at the earliest and it's not like we can go elsewhere once the order is placed. Only a few years ago, those pumpers would have been $5-600K.

 

[NotBudule2]

Somebody said there is some smoke coming down from Canada ?

 

[AzScorpion]

I have to respectfully disagree, at least in part. No state has the resources to manage all forested land. All they can do is try to manage the areas that pose the most direct threat to people. Wind and weather can easily negate those efforts.

I lived in Los Angeles in the late 70's and early 80's and spent a lot of time in the canyon areas affected by the recent Los Angeles fires. The area is huge and the terrain is challenging, to say the least. People who've built there know the danger and CA has been very specific in what people need to do to protect their property from wildfires. Too many people don't do enough.

In Canada, a large portion of the wildfires are in remote areas with no infrastructure or roads.

Tangentially, the LA fires were made even worse by private equity consolidation of the fire apparatus industry. At the time of the fires, LAFD had 83 pumpers out of service. The REV Group owns most of the apparatus brands and most of the rest are owned by another private equity group. They have no incentive to increase production capacity because long back-order bookings have allowed them to increase prices on replacement trucks and makes their financials look good to Wall Street. Order backlogs are now stretching into 4 years, with most orders taking 3 years for fulfillment. LA needed those engines and couldn't get them.

My town in MA approved two new pumpers in May 2024 for $1M each, but we won't see them until sometime in 2027 at the earliest and it's not like we can go elsewhere once the order is placed. Only a few years ago, those pumpers would have been $5-600K.

True that Canada has a lot of remote wilderness but so did Maine. They can still start logging some of these areas little by little and while it wont completely stop fires it'll help reduce them over time and make them more manageable.


California also didn't fill their reservoirs like they should have. Hydrants were dead and they had no available water which is just piss poor management! LA also knew they needed these years ago yet did nothing about it and hired a fire chief who couldn't put out a cigarette without help from 5 other people!

Curious why didn't they order them a few years ago if they knew they'd need them? These cities and towns see the growth yet fail to prepare for it. All one needs to do is keep an eye on the building records to see more police, firefighters and EMTs will be needed and plan accordingly. It's a fail all the way down the line.Nothing is 100% fool proof but many are preventable by a little more pre planning. I could get into a whole list of why they don't have enough money for their resources but it'll become way too political.

 

[TJC]

True that Canada has a lot of remote wilderness but so did Maine. They can still start logging some of these areas little by little and while it wont completely stop fires it'll help reduce them over time and make them more manageable.

California also didn't fill their reservoirs like they should have. Hydrants were dead and they had no available water which is just piss poor management!

California actually drained their reservoirs years before, and if I recall correctly, destroyed several dams. They made their own emergency. And it is continuing...

 

[AzScorpion]

California actually drained their reservoirs years before, and if I recall correctly, destroyed several dams. They made their own emergency. And it is continuing...

Exactly. It's almost like they were planning for this so they could rebuild the area with even higher end homes. Just like the fire in Hawaii a few years ago. Higher means more revenue for their pockets.

Now excuse me while I finish my tinfoil wrap. lol

 

[SigOris]

@subquark silence is deafening

 

[CTYankee]

True that Canada has a lot of remote wilderness but so did Maine. They can still start logging some of these areas little by little and while it wont completely stop fires it'll help reduce them over time and make them more manageable.


California also didn't fill their reservoirs like they should have. Hydrants were dead and they had no available water which is just piss poor management! LA also knew they needed these years ago yet did nothing about it and hired a fire chief who couldn't put out a cigarette without help from 5 other people!

Curious why didn't they order them a few years ago if they knew they'd need them? These cities and towns see the growth yet fail to prepare for it. All one needs to do is keep an eye on the building records to see more police, firefighters and EMTs will be needed and plan accordingly. It's a fail all the way down the line.Nothing is 100% fool proof but many are preventable by a little more pre planning. I could get into a whole list of why they don't have enough money for their resources but it'll become way too political.

I'm not interested in the politics, either, but I do have some insight that maybe others don't. I have served on the town Finance Committee and was serving at the time our engines were approved by Town Meeting. I also serve as the chair for the town Financial Management Planning Committee, which is a fancy name for the capital and budget forecasting committee.

There really aren't any data-based metrics for how many first responders will be needed. There are loose guidelines but every municipality, large or small, has to balance all the competing needs into a balanced budget. In MA, we have Proposition 2.5 that limits property tax increases just as CA has Proposition 13, so in both states that sets a ceiling on budgets below the state level.

When we ordered our pumpers, we were told 2 years. Then it became 3 and it may well turn into 4. We did order in advance and it's likely that LA did, too, because no FD wants to come up short on equipment and the fulfillment delays have been going on since before COVID. They just got worse after COVID.

But the industry is now such a monopoly that the suppliers don't care. Municipalities have to sign orders that allow the supplier to change prices if costs increase before delivery. You can't cancel an order once signed and it doesn't matter anyway because any other supplier will be owned by the same or similar private equity group.

With respect to the hydrants, here's an LA news article describing what happened. Attach what credibility you will to the comments from the water department, but it definitely was a cascading series of events due to the scope of the fire and the speed with which the winds pushed it along.

https://abc7.com/post/los-angeles-w...es-during-fire-did-hydrants-run-dry/16349652/

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