Canada: B.C. Wildfire situation gets much worse as extreme winds arrive, forests minister says

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Pastor Dale Morgan

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Aug 19, 2010, 12:52:20 AM8/19/10
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Perilous Times and Climate Change

Canada: B.C. Wildfire situation gets much worse as extreme winds arrive, forests minister says

 
 
By Vivian Luk, Vancouver Sun August 18, 2010 8:08 PM
 

The next day and a half will be critical for B.C.’s wildfire situation because extreme winds in the weather forecast are faning the flames and are making the bad situation much worse, Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell said Wednesday.

A dry cold front was working its way across the province Wednesday and today, bringing strong, gusty winds and lightning but little rain.

“There are three pieces of the equation that are all going together to spell out what could become the most challenging fire circumstances that we’ve ever faced in the province,” Bell said.

“The first is the fact that we’ve seen virtually no rain in the past 60 days in the central Interior part of the province. We had a very dry winter so we had no moisture in the ground to begin with and that, compounded with the drought conditions over the last 60 days, has left us with absolutely tinder-dry circumstances.

“The second is that we have had some of these very large fire complexes develop as a result of the lightning activity from a few weeks ago. ... Add to that ... extreme wind conditions, winds in excess of 60 kilometres per hour, and you really have an environment where we are uncertain whether we can manage these fires successfully through that period of time.”

Hikers are being urged to stay out of the backcountry, particularly in the Cariboo, Prince George, Northwest and Kamloops regions.

“In these conditions, it takes very little heat to start a fire and they spread really quickly,” fire information officer Gwen Eamer said.

“With people travelling in backcountry areas, there’s no way of contacting them, and no way to know where they are to evacuate them. At the end of the day, if we don’t know where you are, we can’t help you.”

If dangerous fire conditions continue, an outright ban will be issued, Eamer said.

The provincial forest service said 279 wildfires were burning in B.C. The largest, in the Cariboo region, is a complex of fires in Bull Canyon, about 86 kilometres west of Williams Lake. Nearly 460 homes around Alexis Creek near the Bull Canyon fire, and around Anahim Lake near the Heckman Pass blaze, have been evacuated. Another 440 homes between the two areas were on evacuation alert Wednesday, and 25 homes in the Tsacha Lake area, 65 km north of Anahim Lake, were ordered evacuated.

“We’re new owners, so [wildfire evacuation alerts] are fairly new to us,” said Kerry Jacox of Nimpo Lake Resort, about 12 kilometres from Anahim Lake. “We’ve been seeing smoke for weeks. ... If we’re told to leave, we should.”

But Duncan Stewart, owner of Stewart’s Lodge near Nimpo Lake, said the evacuation alert and the closure of Highway 20 near Bella Coola were unnecessary and bad for business.

“Every time there’s a fire in the general area, there’s an overreaction to have everything come to a stop,” said Stewart, who said he had viewed the Heckman Pass fire near Tweedsmuir Park from the company’s float plane. “I don’t see where it’s really threatening the community to the point where they need to restrict access.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Wildfire+situation+could+much+worse+extreme+winds+arrive+forests/3414426/story.html#ixzz0x1ZEfsUQ

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