
The Massive Wildfire Burning in Alberta - curtis
http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/05/the-massive-wildfire-burning-in-alberta/481611/?single_page=true
======
mcmatterson
Those photos are nothing compared to some of the firsthand videos:

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fort+mcmurray++...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fort+mcmurray++dash+cam)

It's honestly like something straight out of an apocalypse movie. Horrifying.

~~~
giarc
I live in Alberta (Calgary) so have obviously been following this closely. Two
things stand out in the videos.

1\. People are still very courteous while evacuating. I imagined it would be
people driving across lawns and through parks. Instead most people are driving
on the proper side of the street and letting others in.

2\. We shouldn't take forest fires for granted and we should evacuate earlier.
Tuesday morning this fire was a non story, then without warning people are
driving down their street with 60m flames on the sidewalk. And not just a few
hold outs, majority of the population came very close to injury or death. Fort
McMurray has basically one way in and out (Hwy 63). If it had been blocked in
both directors, this would be a much different story.

~~~
abrookewood
In regard to point 1, I think people were TOO courteous. Seriously, everyone
is evacuating and heading in the same direction, so drive on BOTH sides of the
road. In some of the videos I've seen, I'm really surprised that people didn't
get trapped and die because the orderly evacuation that only uses half the
possible road bandwidth.

~~~
howlingfantods
Emergency vehicles need to go the other way.

~~~
Ma8ee
And people driving to pick up e.g. grandma, who can't drive, at her house.

------
randlet
80 000 people being evacuated. Amazingly there has only been a single person
killed to date as far as I'm aware of.

The Canadian government is matching Red Cross donations FWIW [1]

[1] [https://donate.redcross.ca/ea-
action/action?gclid=CjwKEAjwgb...](https://donate.redcross.ca/ea-
action/action?gclid=CjwKEAjwgbG5BRDp3oW3qdPiuCwSJAAQmoSDQc1Moexj2OZ5AbywQyKFefs4pMA5-q9Q65PFddmXEhoClqTw_wcB&ea.client.id=1951&ea.campaign.id=50639)

~~~
giarc
Two people died in the car accident on Hwy 63. For some reason they heavily
reported just the single girl (she was a triplet).

~~~
randlet
Hadn't seen that covered. Thanks for the correction.

------
ortusdux
I did not realize the scope of this fire. The official Canadian disaster
database lists the Great Ice Storm of 1998 as the costliest disaster in the
nation's history. Adjusted for inflation, that storm caused 4.6 billion in
damages. If the estimate in this article is accurate, this fire will be the
most expensive natural disaster in Canada's history by a factor of two. It
will beat out the combined cost of the top 5 disasters on the list.

[http://cdd.publicsafety.gc.ca/rslts-
eng.aspx?cultureCode=en-...](http://cdd.publicsafety.gc.ca/rslts-
eng.aspx?cultureCode=en-
Ca&boundingBox=&provinces=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13&eventTypes=&eventStartDate=&injured=&evacuated=&totalCost=1000000,10000000000&dead=&normalizedCostYear=1)

~~~
msbarnett
> I did not realize the scope of this fire.

And it's still expected to double in size, again, overnight tonight.

It is, thankfully, being blown away from populated areas at this point in
time.

------
acomjean
I always like NASA's earth observatories satellite images and analysis

[http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87985](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87985)

apparently a really hot spring
[http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87992](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87992)

~~~
tremon
From what I can tell from that first NASA image, the fire jumped across a >20m
wide river (not sure of the scale)? Is that common?

~~~
JshWright
Absolutely. It depends on the topography and fuel loads, but all it takes is
for the wind to carry a burning ember (which are generated in _huge_
quantities in such a fire).

------
protomyth
It would be the reason oil prices have gone up as it has spread to the oil-
sands [http://www.wsj.com/articles/alberta-evacuations-expanded-
as-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/alberta-evacuations-expanded-as-fires-
spread-1462468738)

~~~
randlet
Fort Mac is really a boom town and it's my understanding that most of the
residents of Fort Mac are employed directly or indirectly by oil & gas.
Production will certainly be hurting in that area for a while to come.

~~~
madaxe_again
Everyone seems to be either not considering or unaware of the tar sands
relationship with the fire - surely ripping up millions of hectares of
vegetation, which helps drive rainfall, has had some impact towards the
severity of the fire.

------
powera
A reminder that the best way to have large forest fires is to constantly
prevent small forest fires.

~~~
gizmo686
I think you have that backwards. The way to prevent large forest fires is to
regularly have small (preferably controlled) forest fires. Otherwise, forests
accumulate undergrowth which makes the inevitable fire even bigger.

~~~
gajomi
That's what I was thinking in seeing all of these photos/videos. What kind of
controlled burn strategies does Alberta province have in place? I know that
before these kind of policies were implemented in the Pacific northwest of the
United States you would semi-periodically have disastrous wildfires, which are
now largely mitigated by way of controlled burns to limit the extent and
intensity of fires. I would like to think that similar strategies have been
implemented in Alberta/BC but don't actually know the facts. Anyone want to
chime in?

~~~
cbowal
There is definitely a controlled burn programme.
[http://www.wildfire.alberta.ca/prescribed-
fires/default.aspx](http://www.wildfire.alberta.ca/prescribed-
fires/default.aspx)

------
xufi
I heard this place gets fires pretty often but nothing to this extent yet.
Glad they're getting lifted to Edmonton as soon as possible. This reminds me
of the Australian wildfire seasons too and how those seem to get out of hand
and and go on on for weeks

------
YZF
Reminds me of travelling near a large forest fire in Australia. The sky was
covered with smoke such that the middle of the day was almost dark as night.
Ash fell from the sky. Pretty scary. Took hours of driving to get away from
that.

~~~
err4nt
We were driving east out of Montana when there were bad fires a number of
years ago. The sky was lit up but looked black, and we were driving parallel
to the mountain range. As the sun set behind the mountains, through the smoke
the sun appeared blood red. And after it set behind the peaks, it got really
dark.

------
lisper
Brace yourselves, folks. This is the new normal.

~~~
Tiktaalik
Absolutely. There's a great deal of evidence that the frequency of severe
forest fires is increasing and this is a significant problem.

Now is a good time to discuss this.

[http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/fort-mcmurray-
an...](http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/fort-mcmurray-and-the-
fires-of-climate-change)

~~~
joveian
It seems unlikely that much of this is actually due to climate change, but
rather due to the way forests are managed (although this may be different in
Canada where the forest area to people ratio is much higher). I don't have a
good link handy but much has been written on this topic. In short, in the US
at least there has been an attempt to avoid all forest fires, which leads to
fewer fires that are more severe when they do happen. I don't remember the
details and can't find the article, but it was mentioned that one area of the
forest near last year's Oregon fire was under different management techniques
and fared relatively well.

~~~
lisper
You can, of course, never know whether any particular fire is due to climate
change or not. But there is no question that climate change is dramatically
increasing the number and intensity of wildfires in western North America
because of decreased precipitation. That, combined with increased human
settlement in what were once wilderness areas, virtually guarantees that this
sort of thing is going to happen more and more often, hence "the new normal."

[http://www.adn.com/article/20150810/2015-alaska-wildfire-
sea...](http://www.adn.com/article/20150810/2015-alaska-wildfire-season-
now-2nd-biggest-record)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2016/01/06/2015-wildfire-season-just-set-an-amazing-and-
troubling-new-record/)

------
codecamper
I don't want photos. I want an article. Tell me why this fire is happening.

Pine beetles? Yes, well so much for investigative reporting, but if you just
search for "pine beetles alberta" you will see photos that show the area that
is burning was attacked about 10 years ago by pine beetle.

welcome to global warming.

wait a sec... Alberta? Fort McMurray!? I don't believe in karma, but I could
change my mind. After all, the alberta tar sands project -- one of the most
ecologically destructive projects on the planet is right there in Fort
MucMurray.

Amazing

~~~
forgetsusername
> _welcome to global warming._

Maybe people wouldn't doubt climate change if every single negative thing that
happens in nature wasn't attributed to it. Massive burns aren't exactly a new
phenomenon.

> _wait a sec... Alberta? Fort McMurray!? I don 't believe in karma, but I
> could change my mind._

Karma will get you too. Maybe post here when it does so we can say you
deserved it.

~~~
blondie9x
It's the overall aggregate trend that's concerning and in line with climatic
models from 80s. We are seeing temperatures spike year over year, droughts
intensify, floods worsen, storms strengthening, sea levels rising, and species
extinction levels increasing.

------
2trill2spill
It's incredibly smoky here in Minneapolis I can only imagine what it's like in
Alberta.

~~~
mitchty
Seems not too bad in St Paul, though to the west looks not great.

[https://weather.com/safety/wildfires/news/fort-mcmurray-
wild...](https://weather.com/safety/wildfires/news/fort-mcmurray-wildfire-
from-space-images)

------
dchmiel
The speed that the fire spread is incredible. It seemed just like another
forest fire that is near a community we get up in Alberta and British
Columbia. The coverage by the National Post shows the fire just creeping
around Ft. McMurray on May 2 and 3 and by May 4 a large portion of the town
was engulfed. [1] Before and after photos show the burnt homes and buildings
like schools. [2]

I live in Edmonton (4.5 hours south of Ft. McMurray) which is taking in a lot
of evacuees. It's so heart warming to see so many people rise up and try to
help everyone by donating places to sleep, someone put up a website to help
facilitate [http://www.ymmfire.ca](http://www.ymmfire.ca). 2 blocks from my
home is a drop off for supplies and all you hear is car horns of support and
people waiting to drop off supplies. People drove up the previous days with
pickup trucks to bring gasoline and supplies to motorist stranded on the
highway. [3]

The most heartwarming of the stories to me is hearing of recent refugees
helping out. [4]

“We understand what they’re feeling. When you lose everything, you have to
start from zero. You lose your memories, your items. It’s not easy. It’s
something very sad. We can totally understand their feeling. We are very
thankful to the Canadian people and we want to be a part of this society. We
will do our best to be a good part of this society. By doing that, maybe we
can return a little bit of the great job that Canadian people did for us”

It feels good to see the support from the newcomers, people in the province
and seeing our provincial and federal governments step in with resources and
funding to fight the fire and help people.

1\. [http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/tracking-the-
fort-m...](http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/tracking-the-fort-
mcmurray-wildfire-the-flames-have-consumed-101000-hectares-and-show-no-sign-
of-stopping)

2\. [http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/see-stunning-
before...](http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/see-stunning-before-and-
after)

3\.
[http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/national/inside+fort+mcm...](http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/national/inside+fort+mcmurray+rescue+convoys+99ve+been+trying+hours+find/11899495/story.html)

4\.
[http://www.edmontonjournal.com/understand+what+they+feeling+...](http://www.edmontonjournal.com/understand+what+they+feeling+syrian+refugees+calgary+step+help+fort+mcmurray/11898904/story.html)

Edits to links.

~~~
mackb1991
I built and posted the ymmfire.ca site on Tuesday evening to help the first
wave of evacuees driving down. The response of people opening their homes,
recreational properties, and spaces has been incredibly overwhelming. We're
still helping match people but I've changed things up so I'm not the bottle
neck now.

We're expecting (and hoping) that the highway will stay clear enough for more
convoys over the next few days. Please donate to the Red Cross to help the
over 80,000 displaced: [https://donate.redcross.ca/ea-
action/action?ea.client.id=195...](https://donate.redcross.ca/ea-
action/action?ea.client.id=1951&ea.campaign.id=50610)

And if you have a site, maybe consider adding a link to donate. I built some
low tech copy and paste banners that you can find here:
[http://ymmfire.ca/redcross](http://ymmfire.ca/redcross)

------
orasis
We got hit with the smoke today here in Montana.

~~~
fnbr
I doubt the smoke you're seeing is from Fort McMurray. I live in Edmonton and
we have beautiful clear skies- no smoke to be seen.

~~~
maxerickson
It's quite a plume. The synthetic image on the top left is showing where the
smoke is affecting air quality:

[http://alg.umbc.edu/usaq/](http://alg.umbc.edu/usaq/)

It's interesting to compare with the earlier reports. It was barely visible 5
days ago.

~~~
maxerickson
(at the time of the above post, the May 5 entry was at the top of the page)

------
blondie9x
Seeing these photos, watching the videos, you really start to understand how
terrible climate change has become and still how much worse it will get if we
don't transition faster.

All these natural disasters are really starting to effect us all. We need to
act swiftly. Carbon energy must end.

~~~
mertd
Why do you think this particular wildfire is due to climate change?

~~~
mikegioia

        The ground is warmer (and therefore drier) now in
        May, and this is especially so in the Boreal Forest
        of Canada where temps. have been rising much faster
        than they have in the mid latitudes.
    
        This year the fire season started very early, and
        temperatures in the region have been at record levels
        for days, with some areas reaching above 30 C.
    

From [http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2016/05/05/roaring-
infe...](http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2016/05/05/roaring-inferno-
alberta-climate-change-looks-like/)

I think this has a lot to do with climate change. If the average temperatures
are warmer and the air/ground is drier, it can increase the likelihood,
frequency, and severity of wildfires. Colorado and California have been/will
be going through the same thing.

------
known
Sometime back I intended to go for [http://www.canadavisa.com/alberta-
provincial-nominee-program...](http://www.canadavisa.com/alberta-provincial-
nominee-program.html)

------
Aelinsaar
That's a hell of a series of images... really drives home the insane amount of
power in such a large fire.

------
maerF0x0
suddenly the preppers dont seem so crazy afterall .

~~~
vkou
I'm sure their truckloads of ammunition turned out to be quite helpful through
this ordeal.

~~~
maerF0x0
not the ammunition. The bug out bags, food and water, bed rolls, escape
strategies, family emergency plans. Those kinds of things.

Yeah ammo and guns is just scary.

~~~
jrnichols
> Yeah ammo and guns is just scary.

Until you realize that one deer can help feed your whole family.

~~~
maerF0x0
yeah as a tool useful. Many prepper groups suggest stockpiling for a coming
war and also because ammo will be a good currency.

~~~
jrnichols
I wouldn't disagree with them about it being a useful barter item. Never know
when that crate of .45-70 Government will come in handy. ;-)

