The Fort McMurray Fire: 'Absolutely a Harbinger of Things to Come'

[kadaholo]

Source: CommonDreams by Staff Writer Deirdre Fulton

The devastating wildfire in Fort McMurray, Canada appears to be losing its intensity, as weather conditions improve for firefighters and initial assessments of staggering damage trickle in. Meanwhile, awareness of the massive fire's significance in the context of climate change continues to spread.

"Alberta's unusually early and large fire is just the latest of many gargantuan fires on an Earth that's grown hotter with more extreme weather," the Associated Press wrote on Wednesday. Indeed, the New York Times reported last month: "Fires, once largely confined to a single season, have become a continual threat in some places, burning earlier and later in the year, in the United States and abroad. They have ignited in the West during the winter and well into the fall, have arrived earlier than ever in Canada and have burned without interruption in Australia for almost 12 months."

The Times reported further on Wednesday, citing boreal forest fires "throughout the hemisphere": "Global warming is suspected as a prime culprit in the rise of these fires. The warming is hitting northern regions especially hard: Temperatures are climbing faster there than for the Earth as a whole, snow cover is melting prematurely, and forests are drying out earlier than in the past. The excess heat may even be causing an increase in lightning, which often sets off the most devastating wildfires."

"Based on what we know and in which direction the climate is going, yes, we can expect more frequent super fires," Marko Princevac, a fire expert at the University of California at Riverside, told CNBC this week. "There is scientific consensus that climate change will lead to much more intense fires, more dry areas."

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/11/fort-mcmurray-fire-absolutely-harbinger-things-come

[Skittles]

10. all the idiots who voted for Dubya bear responsibility too

gawd, the mentality of people who thought Dubya would be a decent president

[rhett o rick]

2. Hillary Clinton and the Capitalists don't care about Climate Change. They, as Capitalists, are

in a race to get as many golden eggs from the goose before it dies. We are in the death throes of Capitalism and Clinton and the Capitalists want someone else to sacrifice to save the planet, but not them. Mammon: The greedy pursuit of wealth. The Clinton Aristocracy has amassed $150,000,000 in a short time from quid pro quo gifts.

[StarTrombone]

3. We didn't take heed after the '94 Hinkley fire in northern Minnesota

That burned well over a quarter of a million acres and killed at least 450 white people and countless American Indians



I don't expect we'll do so now

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hinckley_Fire

[jwirr]

5. I have read the books on that and lived in that area. One of

the problems back then 1918 was that they did not have communications systems that warned people and most of the people had not idea of how a wild fire works.

Some may be interested in a story about the Native American's in the 1918 fire. The family lived near a river and when they could run no further they used reeds to breathe as they sank under the water of the river.

[MisterP]

9. that's rather before AGW

[jwirr]

4. I am wondering about their control methods. In some places

they let them burn themselves out and in others they actively fight them back. In Montreal above my state they let them burn themselves out.

I am looking at the idea that this was even bigger because of the control method.

[7962]

6. That is an "unspoken" problem with many of these big fires

The govt wont let you have controlled burns in many areas or let you clear dead brush. The result is a huge fire when you'd either have a small one or none at all

[jwirr]

7. Yes, that is what I was thinking about.

[elmac]

8. The Peshtigo, Northern Michigan fires of 1871

Happened mainly do to unusual dry spring and summer weather. Add to the mix heavy logging with small fires left unattended + a freak wind storm. over 1200 people died in the Peshtigo fire, unknown how many in norther MI. The two separate Fires were pretty much burning within hours of each other but separated by lake MI. Holland, Ludington were among some of the MI cities that were impacted as the 2.5 million acre fire on the Michigan side started in the west and burned across the entire North half of the state. These fires happened a day before the great Chicago fire.