8 ms·

And 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

And 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...

tn13 10y ago
I suspect Canada's prime concern was the very high carbon footprint of firefighters from USA and Russia.
- sn0v 10y ago
  You're kidding right? This wildfire isn't doing anything to help Canada's carbon footprint.
  - cmelbye 10y ago
    I think/hope he was being sarcastic.
    - tn13 10y ago
      I am not sure why learned members of HN don't get sarcasm. But anecdotally Trudeau was worried about carbon footprints from a camp fire he once attended, but these wildfires don't bother him.
      - johnny22 10y ago
        because you can't trust assuming sarcasm on this site.
        stephengillie 10y ago
        People come to HN to feel smart, and to discuss things that make them feel smart. Things nobody else in their house understands, like JSON and Node.js and jQuery. They don't feel smart when they can't tell if you're being facetious or literal.
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        Poe's law. I've seen far too many (AFAICT) absolutely sincerely intended idiotic statements here. I mostly simply let them fly. xkcd 386 only gets you so far. Adding a </s> tag to your comment helps.
        tn13 10y ago
        I don't think </s> is necessary one your rely on his/her own human intelligence.
        dredmorbius 10y ago
        Evidence suggests otherwise. Which is precisely what Poe's Law is about.
      - triplesec 10y ago
        It's pervasive aspergers. Generally people don't appreciate humour here, which is sad, but for the reason above, that many here find conversational implicature hard, and prefer clear, logical steps.
- as9as87df 10y ago
  I know you are being sarcastic, but this may have a grain of truth (not the concern but the concept itself) Eventually these trees will die and rot/burn anyway, but new ones will grow and recover near equivalent carbon. Trees just hold carbon temporarily.(Underground gas is another story though) If you burn oil from deep underground, that carbon would never have escaped without human intervention.
dkn 10y ago
Actually our airspace was saturated. We had more aircraft ourselves we could have put up but it would have been unsafe to do so.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Really? The fire is over 1000 square km, and there's only like 30 aircraft, right? Plus SA isn't contributing aircraft, only people that have gone through a 10-day "boot camp". It seems very weird that Russia and the US have nothing to contribute, but inexperienced folks from SA do.
  - giarc 10y ago
    By the time Russia came along, much of the populated area's were out of harms way. Adding more aircraft that are all using 1 or 2 airports is just more congestion.
    - rangibaby 10y ago
      An advantage of all Soviet-era planes is they can use any crappy airfield without breaking a sweat.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        Russian firefighting aircraft are sea planes they are designed to land in a lake or in littoral waters to take on water they've been very successful at fighting fires in Greece and Israel with using the med as their water supply.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - patmcc 10y ago
    With a wildfire there's no point in fighting 99% of it - you fight the edges that are near people/property, try to contain it, and wait for rain and for it to run out of fuel. So of a 1000 sq km fire it may only be a few dozen linear kilometers that are being actively fought.
fblp 10y ago
It sounds like Canada is metaphorically and literally playing with fire by turning down help because of the logistical problems. They got help fighting fires from Mexico, the US, Australia, NZ and south Africa last year [1] Here's some comparisons to the numbers in the article you linked to: Canada: 700 firefighters, several choppers, 27 air tankers and 46 pieces of heavy equipment deployed to fight 500,000+ hectare wildfire that has destroyed 2000+ buildings. In Australia, 2013: 2000 firefighters, 90 aircraft, 200 fire engines were deployed to fight a 118,000 hectares fire that cost ~US$50 million and destroyed 250 buildings Many of the firefighters in Australia (and in the southern hemisphere) are idle at the moment as it's heading into winter. It's very weird that Canada turned down help when so much property is on the line. Source http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-02/australian-firefighters-return-from-canada-bushfires/6666012 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-02/australian-firefighter...
- notatoad 10y ago
  there is not really any property on the line. The fire burned three neighbourhoods in Ft McMurray the first day, when it surprised everybody and residents were evacuating through the flames. The next week or so saw significant urban firefighting work to protect the rest of the city and a lot of urban firefighters from around alberta went up to help. Since then, when all the offers of aid from other countries have been coming in, the fire has left town and is mostly just burning up remote forest.
- The_Blackthorn 10y ago
  The numbers of firefighters in the area that you quoted is incorrect. Currently there are 2,146 firefighters and support staff, 80 helicopters and 219 pieces of heavy equipment battling this fire. Source http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-5793-1642C499FF0DE4CF http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-579...
increment_i 10y ago
Turning down Russia I can (sort of?) understand. The last conservative government was keen on playing hardball with the Kremlin over Arctic sovereignty - seems there's no reason to back off that stance now. Turning down American help was strange though. I'd like an explanation for that..
- Shivetya 10y ago
  Canada and Russia recently got into a pissing match over another Russia space craft coming down near. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-says-it-didnt-get-enough-warning-about-a-russian-rocket-stage-that-will-splash-down-in-arctic http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-says-it-didn...
- notatoad 10y ago
  Not only did they turn down american help, they haven't even called on the Canadian military yet - apart from a few aerial imaging assets, they're still just on standby. It's pretty silly to call on external firefighting assets when we still haven't expended our domestic resources yet. Apart from Fort McMurray (which is now pretty safe) it's a mostly unpopulated area, and fire is a great natural renewal process in a boreal forest. Letting it burn for a while longer and just trying to keep guiding it away from anything valuable with minimal resources is a valid strategy.
- The_Blackthorn 10y ago
  They didn't turn down American help, there's 200 US firefighters there right now. Source - http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-5793-1642C499FF0DE4CF http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-579...
dogma1138 10y ago
Turning help from Russia was stupid they actually got allot of experience the great northern forests of Russia are probably the closest environment to Canada and if they go a blaze it can cause an extinction level event on a planetary scale so they are actually well prepared for that at least as well as anyone can be. They even have reportedly tested killing forest fires with nukes if a Siberian tundra fire goes out of control.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  I guess Russia is still unpopular on HN. Russia has allot of experience with wildfires it has the largest and densest northern forests in the world combined with a permafrost that holds insane amount of methane and other carbohydrates. Climate change and forest fires are huge national security issue to Russia and if they go out of control it can cause horrible damage to Russia and even then entire planet as it can cause a Permian extinction style event which happened before when the Siberian carbon traps went up in flames. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin... Russia has been dealing with huge wild fires every several years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires They are one of the few countries that designs and builds dedicated firefighting aircraft designed to combat large forest fires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200 And while they might be arseholes on the political scene otherwise every time there is a large scale fire they do extend their hand and come in with serious help.
  - MAGZine 10y ago
    Canada already has a reciprocal firefighting agreement with America, so if we need external help, we have it. Inviting a totally foreign country in which you're in a) fighting a proxy war with in yet another part of the world; and b) fighting a passive battle for northern sovereignty/control with seems like an incredibly stupid idea. Canada has many forest fires on the go every year and are generally only worth fighting when they threaten communities. Forests are meant to burn. I have friends who work in emergency fire fighting in Saskatchewan and they have not been deployed to the Northern fires because it is not the problem the media is making it out to be!
redthrowaway 10y ago
We turned down the help because it wouldn't have done any good. The fire was too large for people to put out. Only rain can kill it now. Believe me, we didn't turn down help out of pride. We have a ton of experience dealing with these things. We know when a fire is fightable, and when it isn't.
- vehementi 10y ago
  I love how everyone else is just inventing shit about foreign policy. Folks y'all can talk good about hacking but it doesn't mean your armchair intuition is right about specialized issues in other countries
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    At any given point in any given summer, a large chunk of the country is on fire. That's the reality of having a massive landmass covered in boreal forest. The consequence of that is that we have a well funded, professional forest fire service that is among the best in the world at what they do. If accepting American or Russian help would have helped save Canadian homes and businesses, we would have. The South Africans are here for diplomatic reasons more than anything, and they arrived long after the critical period when we were trying to protect property and lives. This isn't the California wildfires. It's not threatening populated areas anymore. It's burning in a vast expanse of unpopulated subarctic forest. It's fine. The damage is done; now we wait for it to burn out while keeping an eye out for the next one.
    - MichaelGG 10y ago
      > The South Africans are here for diplomatic reasons more than anything So it's just a Trudeau-like "diversity" hire or something? Not to say that in a mean way, just that they are not the most qualified and have only received minimal training. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't being praised as "South African government sees it as repaying a debt to the Canadian people for their support for the anti-apartheid struggle"[1]. Let's just call it an aid program and be done? 1: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/300-south-african-firefighters-are-trained-and-headed-to-fort-mcmurray/article30197182/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/300-south-afric...

tn13 10y ago

I suspect Canada's prime concern was the very high carbon footprint of firefighters from USA and Russia.

sn0v 10y ago
You're kidding right? This wildfire isn't doing anything to help Canada's carbon footprint.
- cmelbye 10y ago
  I think/hope he was being sarcastic.
  - tn13 10y ago
    I am not sure why learned members of HN don't get sarcasm. But anecdotally Trudeau was worried about carbon footprints from a camp fire he once attended, but these wildfires don't bother him.
    - johnny22 10y ago
      because you can't trust assuming sarcasm on this site.
      - stephengillie 10y ago
        People come to HN to feel smart, and to discuss things that make them feel smart. Things nobody else in their house understands, like JSON and Node.js and jQuery. They don't feel smart when they can't tell if you're being facetious or literal.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Poe's law. I've seen far too many (AFAICT) absolutely sincerely intended idiotic statements here. I mostly simply let them fly. xkcd 386 only gets you so far. Adding a </s> tag to your comment helps.
      - tn13 10y ago
        I don't think </s> is necessary one your rely on his/her own human intelligence.
        dredmorbius 10y ago
        Evidence suggests otherwise. Which is precisely what Poe's Law is about.
    - triplesec 10y ago
      It's pervasive aspergers. Generally people don't appreciate humour here, which is sad, but for the reason above, that many here find conversational implicature hard, and prefer clear, logical steps.
as9as87df 10y ago
I know you are being sarcastic, but this may have a grain of truth (not the concern but the concept itself) Eventually these trees will die and rot/burn anyway, but new ones will grow and recover near equivalent carbon. Trees just hold carbon temporarily.(Underground gas is another story though) If you burn oil from deep underground, that carbon would never have escaped without human intervention.

dkn 10y ago

Actually our airspace was saturated. We had more aircraft ourselves we could have put up but it would have been unsafe to do so.

MichaelGG 10y ago
Really? The fire is over 1000 square km, and there's only like 30 aircraft, right? Plus SA isn't contributing aircraft, only people that have gone through a 10-day "boot camp". It seems very weird that Russia and the US have nothing to contribute, but inexperienced folks from SA do.
- giarc 10y ago
  By the time Russia came along, much of the populated area's were out of harms way. Adding more aircraft that are all using 1 or 2 airports is just more congestion.
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    An advantage of all Soviet-era planes is they can use any crappy airfield without breaking a sweat.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Russian firefighting aircraft are sea planes they are designed to land in a lake or in littoral waters to take on water they've been very successful at fighting fires in Greece and Israel with using the med as their water supply.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- patmcc 10y ago
  With a wildfire there's no point in fighting 99% of it - you fight the edges that are near people/property, try to contain it, and wait for rain and for it to run out of fuel. So of a 1000 sq km fire it may only be a few dozen linear kilometers that are being actively fought.

fblp 10y ago

It sounds like Canada is metaphorically and literally playing with fire by turning down help because of the logistical problems. They got help fighting fires from Mexico, the US, Australia, NZ and south Africa last year [1] Here's some comparisons to the numbers in the article you linked to: Canada: 700 firefighters, several choppers, 27 air tankers and 46 pieces of heavy equipment deployed to fight 500,000+ hectare wildfire that has destroyed 2000+ buildings. In Australia, 2013: 2000 firefighters, 90 aircraft, 200 fire engines were deployed to fight a 118,000 hectares fire that cost ~US$50 million and destroyed 250 buildings Many of the firefighters in Australia (and in the southern hemisphere) are idle at the moment as it's heading into winter. It's very weird that Canada turned down help when so much property is on the line. Source http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-02/australian-firefighters-return-from-canada-bushfires/6666012 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-02/australian-firefighter...

notatoad 10y ago
there is not really any property on the line. The fire burned three neighbourhoods in Ft McMurray the first day, when it surprised everybody and residents were evacuating through the flames. The next week or so saw significant urban firefighting work to protect the rest of the city and a lot of urban firefighters from around alberta went up to help. Since then, when all the offers of aid from other countries have been coming in, the fire has left town and is mostly just burning up remote forest.
The_Blackthorn 10y ago
The numbers of firefighters in the area that you quoted is incorrect. Currently there are 2,146 firefighters and support staff, 80 helicopters and 219 pieces of heavy equipment battling this fire. Source http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-5793-1642C499FF0DE4CF http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-579...

increment_i 10y ago

Turning down Russia I can (sort of?) understand. The last conservative government was keen on playing hardball with the Kremlin over Arctic sovereignty - seems there's no reason to back off that stance now. Turning down American help was strange though. I'd like an explanation for that..

Shivetya 10y ago
Canada and Russia recently got into a pissing match over another Russia space craft coming down near. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-says-it-didnt-get-enough-warning-about-a-russian-rocket-stage-that-will-splash-down-in-arctic http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-says-it-didn...
notatoad 10y ago
Not only did they turn down american help, they haven't even called on the Canadian military yet - apart from a few aerial imaging assets, they're still just on standby. It's pretty silly to call on external firefighting assets when we still haven't expended our domestic resources yet. Apart from Fort McMurray (which is now pretty safe) it's a mostly unpopulated area, and fire is a great natural renewal process in a boreal forest. Letting it burn for a while longer and just trying to keep guiding it away from anything valuable with minimal resources is a valid strategy.
The_Blackthorn 10y ago
They didn't turn down American help, there's 200 US firefighters there right now. Source - http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-5793-1642C499FF0DE4CF http://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=41701E7ECBE35-AD48-579...

dogma1138 10y ago

Turning help from Russia was stupid they actually got allot of experience the great northern forests of Russia are probably the closest environment to Canada and if they go a blaze it can cause an extinction level event on a planetary scale so they are actually well prepared for that at least as well as anyone can be. They even have reportedly tested killing forest fires with nukes if a Siberian tundra fire goes out of control.

dogma1138 10y ago
I guess Russia is still unpopular on HN. Russia has allot of experience with wildfires it has the largest and densest northern forests in the world combined with a permafrost that holds insane amount of methane and other carbohydrates. Climate change and forest fires are huge national security issue to Russia and if they go out of control it can cause horrible damage to Russia and even then entire planet as it can cause a Permian extinction style event which happened before when the Siberian carbon traps went up in flames. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin... Russia has been dealing with huge wild fires every several years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires They are one of the few countries that designs and builds dedicated firefighting aircraft designed to combat large forest fires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200 And while they might be arseholes on the political scene otherwise every time there is a large scale fire they do extend their hand and come in with serious help.
- MAGZine 10y ago
  Canada already has a reciprocal firefighting agreement with America, so if we need external help, we have it. Inviting a totally foreign country in which you're in a) fighting a proxy war with in yet another part of the world; and b) fighting a passive battle for northern sovereignty/control with seems like an incredibly stupid idea. Canada has many forest fires on the go every year and are generally only worth fighting when they threaten communities. Forests are meant to burn. I have friends who work in emergency fire fighting in Saskatchewan and they have not been deployed to the Northern fires because it is not the problem the media is making it out to be!

redthrowaway 10y ago

We turned down the help because it wouldn't have done any good. The fire was too large for people to put out. Only rain can kill it now. Believe me, we didn't turn down help out of pride. We have a ton of experience dealing with these things. We know when a fire is fightable, and when it isn't.

vehementi 10y ago
I love how everyone else is just inventing shit about foreign policy. Folks y'all can talk good about hacking but it doesn't mean your armchair intuition is right about specialized issues in other countries
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  At any given point in any given summer, a large chunk of the country is on fire. That's the reality of having a massive landmass covered in boreal forest. The consequence of that is that we have a well funded, professional forest fire service that is among the best in the world at what they do. If accepting American or Russian help would have helped save Canadian homes and businesses, we would have. The South Africans are here for diplomatic reasons more than anything, and they arrived long after the critical period when we were trying to protect property and lives. This isn't the California wildfires. It's not threatening populated areas anymore. It's burning in a vast expanse of unpopulated subarctic forest. It's fine. The damage is done; now we wait for it to burn out while keeping an eye out for the next one.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    > The South Africans are here for diplomatic reasons more than anything So it's just a Trudeau-like "diversity" hire or something? Not to say that in a mean way, just that they are not the most qualified and have only received minimal training. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't being praised as "South African government sees it as repaying a debt to the Canadian people for their support for the anti-apartheid struggle"[1]. Let's just call it an aid program and be done? 1: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/300-south-african-firefighters-are-trained-and-headed-to-fort-mcmurray/article30197182/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/300-south-afric...