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Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
- mig39 10y agoI returned to Fort McMurray yesterday, after being evacuated a month ago. It was raining. Today the fire is a bit better because of the rain. I'm one of the lucky ones. My house is still standing, and there's no damage.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoI cannot imagine how that feels to come back to your house intact. I've wondered ever since an acquaintance of mine, who had a house in the Oakland hills during its fire [1], talked about it. She had come back to her house and it was still standing, and then went on to relate how, for her, it was a mixed blessing. The house was there, and the stuff was there, but everything smelled of smoke (and would for years afterward). Some of her neighbors lost their homes, and a combination of the rebuilding challenges (dealing with insurance, contractors, budgets etc) resulted them in selling their houses and moving away. Some of her neighbors were living in 20 year old houses instead of over 50 year old houses (this was back in 2011). Her neighbors had much better wiring, stronger foundations, and built in home fire sprinkler systems. Things which improved their homes in a number of small but important ways. She said it was the most surreal thing in her life in terms of how she "should" feel, how she "did" feel, and how she thought about and remembered the fire. In 2006 she had upgraded the insulation in the attic to make the house more energy efficient and removing all of the old insulation released a lot of smokey smells again which brought a lot of the scene, the craziness, back. I've thought about that a lot since I talked with her. All through my life my parents and the government has spent time and money telling me to "prepare" for disaster and no money at all telling me how to live "after" disaster. Something that helped her was that she began writing a journal in the days and weeks and months that followed the fire. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991
- derefr 10y ago> Some of her neighbors lost their homes, and a combination of the rebuilding challenges ... resulted them in selling their houses and moving away. If this occurred in an urban/suburban environment, it would instantly cause the sort of "shrinking city" problem affecting places like Detroit—suddenly, your house might be the only house on its block, so the viability of delivering power, water, or mail to your lone house (or even keeping the roads maintained around you) would have to be reconsidered as a matter of urban planning. Your house might still be there, but if the city decides to redraw the city limits to exclude it, you may as well give it up as lost anyway—it doesn't have market value any more. On the other hand, if this was a farm—probably then on unincorporated land—a very different set of considerations would be in play, since you (or a co-op you're a part of) would likely own an independent contract for the installation and maintenance of the entire run from the utility to you. On one hand, it would probably end up your responsibility to pay for any repairs to power poles/water mains/etc.—which might be a lot. On the other hand, knowing that, you'd probably have insurance for those "backhauls" for just such occasions. (A lot of farming is risk management of often-volatile commodities. There's a reason the CFTC—the US futures-market regulator—is under the Department of Agriculture.)
- Retric 10y agoThe math on this seems wonky as some areas are very low density and still have electric water and sewer. I suspect detroit has problems from poverty and poor management not density. PS: <rant> Underfunded pensions are a huge issue that's often ignored until way to late. People need to sound the alarm at year one when the pension is not at 110% not year 30 when it's way to late. IMO, a company should not be able to have a dividend or stock buy back if their not over 100%. </rant>
- hackuser 10y ago> If this occurred in an urban/suburban environment It happened in Oakland, CA.
- redthrowaway 10y agoIs there any smoke damage? I would imagine that would be incredibly expensive to fix. Glad to hear you're doing well.
- mig39 10y agoNo smoke damage at all. Last thing I did before leaving was turn off the AC and close all the windows. Some of my neighbours weren't so lucky -- some have a lot of smoke in the house, so have to replace or clean some furniture and have walls cleaned. Still, even that's nothing compared to completely losing a house. I lost power for a total of 20 minutes through the whole thing. My video surveillance system kept running throughout the evacuation, and I could VPN into my house and check on things.
- lostlogin 10y agoWow, what could you check? Presumably a video feed told you if on fire/ not on fire. That's one stressful check to be making.
- wrong_variable 10y agoCanada seems to be in so much trouble - I am wondering how things are there. # Massive flooring of the Canadian dollar. # Continued job losses months on end - Unemployment rate of 7.1% ! # Most expensive Natural Disaster in Canadian history. At least they got their Obama.
- fudged71 10y agoOn the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources. Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.
- wrong_variable 10y agoInteresting to know. I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. But I get conflicting view from the news and statistics.
- Teever 10y agoI hope you understand that unless you have a job lined up or citizenship it is somewhat difficult to move to Canada. If I may make a modest suggestion perhaps try visiting Canada for a period of time in a region where you would want to eventually live instead of relying on the opinions of your friends (who may be biased) or statistics (which may not tell the whole story.)
- ced 10y agoMany countries can get work-holiday visas to Canada. It's a very nice deal, and you can get "serious" jobs with it, too.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- miguelrochefort 10y ago> I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. Either they never lived outside of Canada, either they're lying to you. Canada is a third-world country compared to the USA.
- dang 10y agoThis comment breaks the HN guidelines, as have others you've posted. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing it, and instead post civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11833516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11833516 and marked it off-topic.
- andrepd 10y agoOfftopic, but this is a repeated offence. Why not suspend or terminate the account?
- dang 10y agoIf it seems like there's a chance someone might improve, we'd rather give them that chance.
- miguelrochefort 10y agoI respect your work and I have no intention to challenge your authority. That said, I fail to identify the guideline that lead to this decision. Perhaps someone can enlighten me? I'm also willing to justify my claim, if it seemed gratuitous to any. EDIT: I'm unable to justify any of my claims. I'm unhappy about living in Canada, and I can't help but feel jealous of american people when being exposed to HN or mainstream media. I was wrong for claiming that OP's friends would lie to him. I was wrong for claiming that Canada is a third world country. I'm sorry.
- maerF0x0 10y ago
- MichaelGG 10y agoAnd yet, Canada turned down help from Russia and the US. Then went around and hired 300 firefighters from South Africa that have no experience with this type of fire or equipment (they said due to lack of water, they use sticks to beat the bush fires). I understand it's more of a social help program ("Working On Fire" job assistance), but still it seems bizarre. Or maybe I've been reading the wrong news sources and there's more to it? Cause it seems unreal. Edit: Some sources: http://globalnews.ca/news/2690570/trudeau-criticized-for-refusing-international-help-for-fort-mcmurray-wildfire/ http://globalnews.ca/news/2690570/trudeau-criticized-for-ref... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-fire-south-africa-1.3605976 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-fire-so...
- nuand 10y ago$6.9 billion? sounds like this fire is razing quite well
- bane 10y agoIn some sense, probably not out of control, but a huge debt to what nature does by itself. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BOREASFire/ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BOREASFire/
- sandworm101 10y agoSix billion yes, but this is Fort Mac, not New Orleans. It is a working town. Insurance will pay out, the government will help here and there, but the town will recover largely on its own. Or, should the economic realities of lower oil prices dictate, the town will never come back to what it once was. Either way, the fire is not the deciding factor.
- yeowMeng 10y agoInteresting fact: Aboriginal people living in North America before first contact with Europeans used to perform periodic controlled blazes on the land. Motivations including making the land easier for hunting and preventing uncontrollable fires from gaining strength. Now, the land grows thick until fire comes to clean according to natures' idea of natural process. I tree planted in BC/Alberta, the land grows so thick that they often have to fly you in helicopter to re-plant land that previous tree planters failed to plant correctly.
- snowwindwaves 10y agoIt only grows that thick after it has been clear cut. Old growth forests have a high canopy that starves thick underbrush for light. Humans clear cutting are part of the problem. When there is a forest fire in old growth the brush might burn but the big old trees will survive several fires.
- sandworm101 10y agoThe north is different. The trees are not the giant cedars of the pacific coastal rain forest. There often isn't anything to call a canopy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreal_forest_of_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreal_forest_of_Canada
- snowwindwaves 10y agoah ok. I've only been up north once around terrace and bell 2 which is still kind of coastal compared to fort Mac
- noarchy 10y agoCanadian here. I'm often amazed at how tall the trees are, when I've visited the southern US. I'm not even that far north (I'm near Ottawa), but the differences are still quite obvious to me.
- snowwindwaves 10y ago
- hackney 10y agoI find it kinda sad we can rocket around the universe but we can't put out a fire in our backyard. Airports should be built and staffed like fire departments for our wilderness. Wouldn't take a lot of staff except for the pilots of course. I think the money spent, taken from the military budget, would work perfectly.
- philjackson 10y agoAnother wild over-valuation on Hacker News.
- catmanjan 10y agoWhat we need is an app to warn people of nearby fires... Tinder?
- spoofball 10y agoand people think technology will solve global warming, but floods, fires and tornados still unmatched by human ingenuity. 2060 - year when rainforests disappear 2049 - year when oceans get empty tech, solve that!
- lazyant 10y agoSuddenly almost everyone in HN knows more about extinguishing wildfires than the Canadian firefighters, who pretty much invented the category. Just three words: zero lives lost.