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For anyone getting an emotional response and willing to blame climate change deniers, here's some dry government statistics on Canadian forest fires [0]. The n

For anyone getting an emotional response and willing to blame climate change deniers, here's some dry government statistics on Canadian forest fires [0]. The number of fires over the past 4 decades is trending down. The numbers for area burned looks like each time there's a peak, it burns out enough fuel to make subsequent years easier. There were a couple of peaks in 1980s/1990s, but nothing that big recently. Also, notably, the area burnt is lowest during recession years and COVID lockdown year. So when people could not afford to go camping/ATVing, the amount of fires was drastically less. Climate change probably does play some role here, but so does the 20% population increase in BC over the last 2 decades. So, the correct question to ask is "what can we do as a reasonable trade-off to reduce the number of fires in the future without compromising the quality of life?". And the correct answer is "educate people on how to spot hazardous terrain and contain the fires they accidentally started". Requiring fire extinguishers at campsites/ATVs could help. Doing some training would help. Doing controlled burns would help. Renaming Environment Canada to "Environment and Climate Change Canada| and closing down local production in favor of Chinese imports won't. [0] https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb

nonethewiser 3y ago
What about telling children they are doomed? Wont that help?
- Fricken 3y ago
  I don't understand why telling children they are doomed is regarded as worse than actually dooming them.
  - throwawaysleep 3y ago
    One is far in the future and they won’t be around to hear them anymore.
  - goatlover 3y ago
    It's worse when you're not actually dooming them, but you are discouraging them.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
graeme 3y ago
Hmm. Do you have any more info about 2020? This is an interesting theory. I note a few things though 1. The number of fires is trending down, but 2. The area burned is trending up 3. The number of fires in 2020 wasn’t noticeably different. Down but on trend. But area burned was very low Idly I wonder if some of the worst fires are started by humans through carelessness or on purpose, and this number of fires was down in 2020? Could also be a coincidence. Some years in the past had a very low area burned with a normal number of fires.
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  >Hmm. Do you have any more info about 2020? Provincial parks were outright closed for some time. And people in general were too spooked to go grilling on a forest campsite with the entire extended family.
  - jerpint 3y ago
    Blaming family bbqs for forest fires is a weird hill to die on
    - mistrial9 3y ago
      human-involved incidents continue to be a leading factor in major forest wildfire, even in rural areas
  - graeme 3y ago
    Good point. The curious thing to me is why number of fires wasn't that low, even though area burned was at an all time low.
- notatoad 3y ago
  according to the numbers reported by provincial wildfire management agencies, the difference is entirely in the lightning-caused fires. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/susy.domenicano/viz/3_2_1-Areaburnedbycauseclass/3_1_2_EN https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/susy.domenicano/viz/3...
dwroberts 3y ago
> The number of fires over the past 4 decades is trending down. The numbers for area burned looks like each time there's a peak, it burns out enough fuel to make subsequent years easier. There were a couple of peaks in 1980s/1990s, but nothing that big recently. I think this is a misleading interpretation of two (pretty vague) statistics. How have the mitigation strategies for fire changed over the last 30 years? The area burnt may not increase but the fires may be more fierce/more difficult to control, and the lack of change in these stats may be because of control techniques being different. The same can apply for the amount of preparatory work being done (/money spent) before fire season.
yongjik 3y ago
The graph shown in the link ends at 2021, with was apparently a somewhat bad year but not horrible, with 4 million hectares burned. Clearly, there were worse years in the past, like 1989 or 1995, when more then 7 million hectares were burned. Since 1996 no year had more than 5M hectares burned, and the graph (if you squint enough) does look like it's slightly trending down. Except, enter 2023 [1]: > As of August 17, 5,765 fires had burned 13,749,167 hectares (33,974,932 acres), about four percent of the entire forest area of Canada and more than five times the long-term average of 2.38 million ha (5.9 million acres) for that time of the year. Want to see what an updated graph looks like? Found one here [2] - scroll down to the bottom. It seems misleading to cite a graph ending at 2021 when we're seeing the graph shooting off the chart right in front of us. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Canadian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Canadian_wildfires [2] https://ciffc.net/statistics https://ciffc.net/statistics
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  2023 is a first El Niño year after a long streak of La Niña years [0]. Which means, drier-than-usual summer after multiple wetter-than-usual summers. If we assume that wetter years accumulate the fuel, and drier years burn it, it would explain a single peak in 2023 followed by lower-than-average years later. [0] https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm
  - swader999 3y ago
    Too soon for El Nino to be a factor.
  - yongjik 3y ago
    Except that the very graph in your link shows 2023 as an unremarkable year. "El Niño after a few years of La Niña" practically happens every decade or so. Similar thing happened in 2002 and 2009: 2002 was an average fire year and 2009 was close to minimal fire.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
freeslave 3y ago
"There are complex reasons for our dire wildfires, but scientists say climate change plays key role" [0] "Our forest management practices, they've been like this since about the '80s. So why is it we're seeing the bad fire seasons now? It's because the weather has gotten more extreme." [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/wildfire-factors-climate-change-1.6939911 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/wildfire-fac...
bparsons 3y ago
The entire province is on fire. It has barely rained in the southern half of the province since April. It is climate change.
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  Which is fairly consistent with other El Niño years [0] [0] https://vancouver.weatherstats.ca/charts/precipitation-monthly.html https://vancouver.weatherstats.ca/charts/precipitation-month...
- goatlover 3y ago
  You know this is the same sort of fallacious reasoning the deniers make when they say it's been usually cold and snowy in their part of the world? You need to show there's a link between the lack of rain and the province being on fire. Is there historical precedence for these kinds of dry periods and fires?
  - gravitronic 3y ago
    There is simple physics: warmer air holds more moisture, pulling it from the ground and holding it longer. Explains drier conditions and more extreme rainfalls when they do occur
- swader999 3y ago
  Climate change is supposed to bring more rainfall though.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    A couple years ago we had a major flood event which still hasn't been fully recovered from, so... Maybe that qualifies as more rainfall.
  - gravitronic 3y ago
    Reposting my comment: warmer air holds more moisture, pulling it from the ground and holding it longer. Explains drier conditions and more extreme rainfalls when they do finally occur
libraryatnight 3y ago
[flagged]
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  On the contrary, to be critical of what the media tells them, quantify problems, rank solutions and check for conflicts of interest. This won't work though. The critical thinking in the U.S. culture has been replaced by obedience, and we are back to hunting heretics in the name of holy symbols. It's a stable societal structure - look a poor Muslim countries, for example. They are busy blaming infidels for all their misfortunes, and will never attribute their poverty to the power structures on top of them. Threads like this, though, are good for gauging the speed of the societal decline and deciding when to emigrate forward. If you yourself haven't lived in a country where "greater good" was used to swiftly destroy the then-emerging middle class, you won't recognize the patterns, so you can ignore the whole thing.
  - voisin 3y ago
    It is worth considering the cost benefit of this criticality. What is gained by not trying to lessen human impact on our environment?
- ggdG 3y ago
  > I don't understand your goal. Why are you doing this sort of comment? Taking the time to dull peoples minds against whats happening to the world? > Is it for yourself? Are you scared and it makes you feel better to try and control other peoples' perceptions and reactions? Do you believe you're doing a service and creating a nuanced worldview that helps people make better decisions? You're not. I don't understand you. > Are you in a position that this com ment is useful? Is this a place where it is useful? If it's not, is the purpose of the article to solicit the sort of response you've provided? > You are going to die asking stupid questions in meetings. “Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome.” ― Charles Mackay https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/227837-of-all-the-offspring-of-time-error-is-the-most https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/227837-of-all-the-offspring...
steve_adams_86 3y ago
Here is a gif of all of the years in sequence. If you look at https://firesmoke.ca https://firesmoke.ca, or https://smokebuddy.app https://smokebuddy.app, you can see the fire perimeter polygons for 2023 so far. I'm not sure about perimeters for 2022, but I think there was less burned than this year and 2021. https://static.steve-adams.me/canada-fire-polys-1980-2021.gif https://static.steve-adams.me/canada-fire-polys-1980-2021.gi...
deanCommie 3y ago
Counterpoint: "The 2023 wildfire season is now B.C.'s most destructive on record — and it's only mid-July" The four worst forest fire seasons in BC since 1950 by square kilometers burnt are 2023, 2018, 2017, and 2021 in that order. [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfire-july-18-1.6909596 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfire-...
- deanCommie 3y ago
  Counterpoint 2: https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1693134044026843298 https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/16931340440268432...
neltnerb 3y ago
> So, the correct question to ask is "what can we do as a reasonable trade-off to reduce the number of fires in the future without compromising the quality of life?". And the correct answer is "educate people on how to spot hazardous terrain and contain the fires they accidentally started". Requiring fire extinguishers at campsites/ATVs could help. Doing some training would help. Doing controlled burns would help. Renaming Environment Canada to "Environment and Climate Change Canada| and closing down local production in favor of Chinese imports won't. This is such a wild false dichotomy. Unless you're saying climate change has nothing to do with it, or is making fires better, it's a strange thing to play devil's advocate about -- especially pre-emptively. I accept the scientific consensus that climate change is making a lot of these natural disasters worse/different and more frequent, so addressing climate change and teaching people how to survive novel natural disasters are both important on different time scales.
nvy 3y ago
>closing down local production in favor of Chinese imports This is Canada you're talking about. We have no idea how to do anything but destroy our own economy by offshoring.
lamontcg 3y ago
> There were a couple of peaks in 1980s/1990s, but nothing that big recently. I get a slope of 61,783 ± 31,227 for that data via linear regression. That means 2,471,320 HA more per year burning now compared to 40 years ago. It wasn't exceeding 1.8M HA per year in the 80s+90s other than the peaks in 89, 94/95, and 99. It exceeded that amount 13 times since 2002. The average fit yearly burn has increased from 1.2M HA in 1980 to 3.6M HA in 2023.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

nonethewiser 3y ago

What about telling children they are doomed? Wont that help?

Fricken 3y ago
I don't understand why telling children they are doomed is regarded as worse than actually dooming them.
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  One is far in the future and they won’t be around to hear them anymore.
- goatlover 3y ago
  It's worse when you're not actually dooming them, but you are discouraging them.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

graeme 3y ago

Hmm. Do you have any more info about 2020? This is an interesting theory. I note a few things though 1. The number of fires is trending down, but 2. The area burned is trending up 3. The number of fires in 2020 wasn’t noticeably different. Down but on trend. But area burned was very low Idly I wonder if some of the worst fires are started by humans through carelessness or on purpose, and this number of fires was down in 2020? Could also be a coincidence. Some years in the past had a very low area burned with a normal number of fires.

matrix_overload 3y ago
>Hmm. Do you have any more info about 2020? Provincial parks were outright closed for some time. And people in general were too spooked to go grilling on a forest campsite with the entire extended family.
- jerpint 3y ago
  Blaming family bbqs for forest fires is a weird hill to die on
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    human-involved incidents continue to be a leading factor in major forest wildfire, even in rural areas
- graeme 3y ago
  Good point. The curious thing to me is why number of fires wasn't that low, even though area burned was at an all time low.
notatoad 3y ago
according to the numbers reported by provincial wildfire management agencies, the difference is entirely in the lightning-caused fires. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/susy.domenicano/viz/3_2_1-Areaburnedbycauseclass/3_1_2_EN https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/susy.domenicano/viz/3...

dwroberts 3y ago

> The number of fires over the past 4 decades is trending down. The numbers for area burned looks like each time there's a peak, it burns out enough fuel to make subsequent years easier. There were a couple of peaks in 1980s/1990s, but nothing that big recently. I think this is a misleading interpretation of two (pretty vague) statistics. How have the mitigation strategies for fire changed over the last 30 years? The area burnt may not increase but the fires may be more fierce/more difficult to control, and the lack of change in these stats may be because of control techniques being different. The same can apply for the amount of preparatory work being done (/money spent) before fire season.

yongjik 3y ago

The graph shown in the link ends at 2021, with was apparently a somewhat bad year but not horrible, with 4 million hectares burned. Clearly, there were worse years in the past, like 1989 or 1995, when more then 7 million hectares were burned. Since 1996 no year had more than 5M hectares burned, and the graph (if you squint enough) does look like it's slightly trending down. Except, enter 2023 [1]: > As of August 17, 5,765 fires had burned 13,749,167 hectares (33,974,932 acres), about four percent of the entire forest area of Canada and more than five times the long-term average of 2.38 million ha (5.9 million acres) for that time of the year. Want to see what an updated graph looks like? Found one here [2] - scroll down to the bottom. It seems misleading to cite a graph ending at 2021 when we're seeing the graph shooting off the chart right in front of us. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Canadian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Canadian_wildfires [2] https://ciffc.net/statistics https://ciffc.net/statistics

matrix_overload 3y ago
2023 is a first El Niño year after a long streak of La Niña years [0]. Which means, drier-than-usual summer after multiple wetter-than-usual summers. If we assume that wetter years accumulate the fuel, and drier years burn it, it would explain a single peak in 2023 followed by lower-than-average years later. [0] https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm
- swader999 3y ago
  Too soon for El Nino to be a factor.
- yongjik 3y ago
  Except that the very graph in your link shows 2023 as an unremarkable year. "El Niño after a few years of La Niña" practically happens every decade or so. Similar thing happened in 2002 and 2009: 2002 was an average fire year and 2009 was close to minimal fire.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

freeslave 3y ago

"There are complex reasons for our dire wildfires, but scientists say climate change plays key role" [0] "Our forest management practices, they've been like this since about the '80s. So why is it we're seeing the bad fire seasons now? It's because the weather has gotten more extreme." [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/wildfire-factors-climate-change-1.6939911 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/wildfire-fac...

bparsons 3y ago

The entire province is on fire. It has barely rained in the southern half of the province since April. It is climate change.

matrix_overload 3y ago
Which is fairly consistent with other El Niño years [0] [0] https://vancouver.weatherstats.ca/charts/precipitation-monthly.html https://vancouver.weatherstats.ca/charts/precipitation-month...
goatlover 3y ago
You know this is the same sort of fallacious reasoning the deniers make when they say it's been usually cold and snowy in their part of the world? You need to show there's a link between the lack of rain and the province being on fire. Is there historical precedence for these kinds of dry periods and fires?
- gravitronic 3y ago
  There is simple physics: warmer air holds more moisture, pulling it from the ground and holding it longer. Explains drier conditions and more extreme rainfalls when they do occur
swader999 3y ago
Climate change is supposed to bring more rainfall though.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  A couple years ago we had a major flood event which still hasn't been fully recovered from, so... Maybe that qualifies as more rainfall.
- gravitronic 3y ago
  Reposting my comment: warmer air holds more moisture, pulling it from the ground and holding it longer. Explains drier conditions and more extreme rainfalls when they do finally occur

libraryatnight 3y ago

[flagged]

matrix_overload 3y ago
On the contrary, to be critical of what the media tells them, quantify problems, rank solutions and check for conflicts of interest. This won't work though. The critical thinking in the U.S. culture has been replaced by obedience, and we are back to hunting heretics in the name of holy symbols. It's a stable societal structure - look a poor Muslim countries, for example. They are busy blaming infidels for all their misfortunes, and will never attribute their poverty to the power structures on top of them. Threads like this, though, are good for gauging the speed of the societal decline and deciding when to emigrate forward. If you yourself haven't lived in a country where "greater good" was used to swiftly destroy the then-emerging middle class, you won't recognize the patterns, so you can ignore the whole thing.
- voisin 3y ago
  It is worth considering the cost benefit of this criticality. What is gained by not trying to lessen human impact on our environment?
ggdG 3y ago
> I don't understand your goal. Why are you doing this sort of comment? Taking the time to dull peoples minds against whats happening to the world? > Is it for yourself? Are you scared and it makes you feel better to try and control other peoples' perceptions and reactions? Do you believe you're doing a service and creating a nuanced worldview that helps people make better decisions? You're not. I don't understand you. > Are you in a position that this com ment is useful? Is this a place where it is useful? If it's not, is the purpose of the article to solicit the sort of response you've provided? > You are going to die asking stupid questions in meetings. “Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome.” ― Charles Mackay https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/227837-of-all-the-offspring-of-time-error-is-the-most https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/227837-of-all-the-offspring...

steve_adams_86 3y ago

Here is a gif of all of the years in sequence. If you look at https://firesmoke.ca https://firesmoke.ca, or https://smokebuddy.app https://smokebuddy.app, you can see the fire perimeter polygons for 2023 so far. I'm not sure about perimeters for 2022, but I think there was less burned than this year and 2021. https://static.steve-adams.me/canada-fire-polys-1980-2021.gif https://static.steve-adams.me/canada-fire-polys-1980-2021.gi...

deanCommie 3y ago

Counterpoint: "The 2023 wildfire season is now B.C.'s most destructive on record — and it's only mid-July" The four worst forest fire seasons in BC since 1950 by square kilometers burnt are 2023, 2018, 2017, and 2021 in that order. [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfire-july-18-1.6909596 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfire-...

deanCommie 3y ago
Counterpoint 2: https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1693134044026843298 https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/16931340440268432...

neltnerb 3y ago

> So, the correct question to ask is "what can we do as a reasonable trade-off to reduce the number of fires in the future without compromising the quality of life?". And the correct answer is "educate people on how to spot hazardous terrain and contain the fires they accidentally started". Requiring fire extinguishers at campsites/ATVs could help. Doing some training would help. Doing controlled burns would help. Renaming Environment Canada to "Environment and Climate Change Canada| and closing down local production in favor of Chinese imports won't. This is such a wild false dichotomy. Unless you're saying climate change has nothing to do with it, or is making fires better, it's a strange thing to play devil's advocate about -- especially pre-emptively. I accept the scientific consensus that climate change is making a lot of these natural disasters worse/different and more frequent, so addressing climate change and teaching people how to survive novel natural disasters are both important on different time scales.

nvy 3y ago

>closing down local production in favor of Chinese imports This is Canada you're talking about. We have no idea how to do anything but destroy our own economy by offshoring.

lamontcg 3y ago

> There were a couple of peaks in 1980s/1990s, but nothing that big recently. I get a slope of 61,783 ± 31,227 for that data via linear regression. That means 2,471,320 HA more per year burning now compared to 40 years ago. It wasn't exceeding 1.8M HA per year in the 80s+90s other than the peaks in 89, 94/95, and 99. It exceeded that amount 13 times since 2002. The average fit yearly burn has increased from 1.2M HA in 1980 to 3.6M HA in 2023.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]