7 ms·
'Zombie Fires' burning at an alarming rate in Canada
- sebazzz 3y agoThis seems to be similar to that American town where the coal mine went in fire and kept burning, even to this day. Except here the organic substrate is burning. Apparently it is well insulated because the top snow layer doesn't melt but it is also porous because the fire needs oxygen.
- lisper 3y agoYou're thinking of the Centralia fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire "The Centralia mine fire is a coal-seam fire which has been burning in the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962. Its original cause and start date are still a matter of debate. It is burning at depths of up to 300 ft (90 m) over an 8 mi (13 km) stretch of 3,700 acres (15 km2).[4] At its current rate, it could continue to burn for over 250 years."
- throw310822 3y agoCan they at least get energy out of it? Eg by putting pipes in the ground and pumping water through them so that it comes out hot enough to drive a turbine?
- pvaldes 3y agoReplace the oxygen in that tunnels with a mix of water and some inert mix gas heavier than air? Identify each pit and air vent smoking and seal it tight until the oxygen is exhausted? Nobody has really tried anything to stop this C02 emission source in 70 years?
- timschmidt 3y agoHave you heard of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routine_flaring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routine_flaring ?
- sandworm101 3y agoIt is not that simple. The rock is still hot, hot enough that it will take decades to cool. It could reignite decades later if given air. Any effort to seal and extinguish the fire would be a project more like chernobyl remediation than putting out a forest fire.
- pfdietz 3y agoAlso, if the coal is hot, putting water (steam) on it produces flammable gas (CO and H2).
- toomuchtodo 3y agoCO2 injection to smother and cool?
- pfdietz 3y agoThat makes carbon monoxide. Maybe nitrogen?
- toomuchtodo 3y agoAppears to be state of the art (injecting nitrogen foam). Good call! https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40789-022-00539-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40789-022-00539-4 https://patents.google.com/patent/US7104336 https://patents.google.com/patent/US7104336
- pvaldes 3y agoI wonder if big companies would agree to sponsor this fix if the government will agree in return to include a reduction in their carbon emissions taxes of that year. If well done everybody would be happy. One problem less.
- pvaldes 3y agoWe have prices and rewards allocated for looking for solutions to non-simple cases. How much resources have been trow to the problem? More or less resources than excuses? Let a lot of the main carbon storage released just because "why should we care?" is ludicrous. We are in a better position to fix it than in 60's.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- _Microft 3y agoThere seem to be a lot of these coal fires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire
- sitkack 3y agoWe should use them as geothermal power sources.
- respondo2134 3y agowe already are, on a planet-wide basis
- pfdietz 3y agoOh great. With in situ coal combustion, we can use all the coal, not just the readily mineable coal. Let's reproduce the CO2 increase from the end Permian extinction.
- sitkack 3y agoIf they are already burning, and we can't or won't put them out, then why not? As of now, they are emitting CO2 and are also of no use. Should we not use them out of spite of ourselves?
- coolhand2120 3y agoIt's not a safe area to be around. The ground shifts, the air is death. The water is death. Really not worth it. There are some great videos on youtube about these places. They make clear why nobody lives around them.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MrVandemar 3y agoI'm in Australia, and we had these on our place. We have bush and cow-paddocks. We had a bush-fire go through back in 2018, and even though the fire was extinguished, I noticed the grass turning black in a line, or spreading out radially in some spots. Not fast, but it was steady. I worked out it was a peat fire and called the fire-brigade back. The chief told us, and this is a direct quote, "it's just cow-pats on fire"! It took a more experienced old-hand to set him straight, and that it was an actual problem. On a small scale it's like voodoo. On those scales, it must be terrifying.
- sdwr 3y agoSpooky. How do you deal with something like that?
- davidbanham 3y agoDig with a Macleod tool, straight jets of water into the ground to penetrate, sprays on turned soil to cool. Rinse and repeat. A thermal imaging camera can be handy to find the hot spots. Especially if you can get on the fireground overnight. Mainly, though, you just need to watch peaty areas carefully until you’re sure they’re done and dusted. Regular patrols, especially ahead of a bad weather change. Australian peat is very different to Canadian peat, though. Canada is wetter and colder, making this kind of overwintering possible. Here peat fires can smoulder for up to a few weeks, but they’ll either blow back up once it gets dry enough or go out once it rains enough. We never get that protective snow layer that keeps the fire dry but cool for months on end. I haven’t been over but a couple of mates went last year. The part of Canada they were working has a deep peat/duff layer above permafrost. All the trees are rooted only in the duff so when the fire rolls through, it burns out all the root balls and suddenly every tree is a widowmaker. Also Canada has reliable flowing water from snowmelt, so their tactics are focused on high pressure pumps and multi-km hose lays. Totally alien to the dry firefighting tactics we use in remote area work here in Aus.
- frank_bb 3y ago[dead]
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoLast year was bad for forest fire season in BC and AB. This coming one has the potential to be as bad or worse. Snow-pack in the mountains is something like 30% of average in some places, so far anyways. Gonna be dry.
- lapcat 3y agoAll last summer in the US Upper Midwest, we got drifting smoke from Canadian wildfires. This news doesn't bode well.
- vidanay 3y agoI suspect we will have smoke/haze again this year (Illinois).
- tonyarkles 3y agoIt was wild to see. I was working down in the Monmouth, IL region for a few weeks this past spring. My wife in Saskatchewan would send me pictures when the smoke got bad. Two or three days later it would reliably roll through Monmouth. I’m sure hoping it doesn’t happen again this year. While it was pretty bad down in IL when it would roll through, it was downright miserable back home in SK. Some days you’d wake up in the morning with this thick crust of gunk in your eyes and nose. Can’t have been good for health.
- newsclues 3y agoCanadian government has cut funding and forest management services, which leads to these fires, which the government blames on global warming and climate change. But the government has stopped managing the forests, and is not putting forth the required effort to deal with the fires or the root issues. Unfortunately this is a problem that the government appears reluctant to deal with because it feeds their ideological agenda of climate change. Unfortunately as a Canadian, I can't trust the Canadian government as they maintain they are leaders in this sector, yet failing (on purpose imo) https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/world/canada/canada-firefighting-capacity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/world/canada/canada-firef...
- Retric 3y agoThat’s not really what’s going on, people always complain about the budget but the variability is vastly more than explained by budgets alone. In Alberta 30% more acres burned in 1983 than 2023, while 2020 was one of the lowest years on record. Wildfires are just highly variable, and 2023 was ideal conditions for them while 2020 wasn’t.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago> while 2020 was one of the lowest years on record Kind of an interesting data point given that wildfires are often unintentionally started by humans and 2020 was the bulk of the lockdown from COVID.
- respondo2134 3y agoExcept that 1. the vast majority of forest fires in Canada are started by lightning strikes. 2. Canada did not have strict lock-down rules like much of the world; going off in the woods was one of the things you could definitey do
- thesz 3y agoI remember (from videos of VivaFrei, a Canadian citizen) that it was prohibited to walk outside area of few blocks away from your home address. And there were curfews. If so, going off in the woods was one of the things you could definitey not do.
- jt2190 3y agotl;dr The western provinces of Canada are tracking a higher than usual number of peat fires that they expect will “kick start” a new round of forest fires in the spring. British Columbia: 106 peat fires (typical average ~10) Alberta: 57 (average ~6)
- respondo2134 3y ago>> So-called zombie fires are burning under thick layers of snow at an unprecedented rate. ...also called overwintering fires. They are flameless smoulders that burn slowly below the surface I guess we know what drives clicks.
- joemazerino 3y ago"RCMP arrest man for arson in connection with starting wildfires" https://globalnews.ca/news/9673400/arson-alberta-wildfires-intentionally-set-church/ https://globalnews.ca/news/9673400/arson-alberta-wildfires-i... But yeah, "zombie fires"
- voisin 3y agoDid you read the article? Zombie fires are those continuing to burn under the snow. That term doesn’t conflict at all with one idiot starting a handful of fires.
- InSteady 3y agoThe article is specifically talking about fires that smolder underground through the winter (even in -40 F conditions), fed on peat moss.