Canada wildfires: thousands told to flee in British Columbia, as drone-flying tourists criticised

[Botany]

Source: The Guardian

Officials in the Canadian province of British Columbia have implored tens of thousands of residents to heed warnings and evacuate from areas threatened by “severe and fast-changing” wildfires, and urged “irresponsible” wildfire tourists to stop flying drones in the area.

snip

The situation in large parts of the scenic Okanagan Valley, including the city of Kelowna, was “highly dynamic”, Ma said. About 30,000 people were under evacuation orders while another 36,000 were under alert to be ready to flee, she said.

snip

Kelowna, a city of 150,000, was choked with thick smoke as it became the latest population center hit in a summer of dramatic wildfires across Canada that has left millions of acres scorched. Some 3,400 workers are involved in firefighting in British Columbia, western Canada.

“The current situation is grim,” the premier, David Eby, told reporters on Saturday.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/20/canada-wildfires-thousands-told-to-flee-in-british-columbia-as-drone-flying-tourists-criticised

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Now where do all the citizens of Earth evacuate to? This is really grim. Fuck all those assholes who made
fun of Jimmy Carter and his solar panels or Al Gore's warnings about climate change.

The fires are in Washington State too.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/20/washington-state-wildfire-leaves-one-dead-and-nearly-200-structures-destroyed


Kelowna, B.C. .... there are homes in that fire.

[Goddessartist]

1. This is the new normal. It's so very sad. Here on Vashon Island

we are really starting to smell the smoke.

[Botany]

3. Columbus, OH has had about 20 "smoke days" via the fires in Canada this summer

One evening about 7 or 8 pm we had a thunderstorm and you could feel the rain, hear the thunder,
feel the wind gusts, and yet you could not see the clouds because of the smoke. It was really scary
and God only knows what kind of chemical compounds was in that wood smoke that rain was bringing
down.

please go and watch a sunset over the sound for me.

[Goddessartist]

16. I will. Take care of yourself.

[2naSalit]

2. I hope they get some of this rain from the hurricane...

It looks like it might get all the way up there by tomorrow.

[Botany]

6. "I hope they get some of this rain from the hurricane..."

That would be nice and if the storm could get onto the Yellowknife and the NWT that would
even be better.

[2naSalit]

8. We're getting a good amount of rain

Across most of Montana but it is starting to look like there's a front keeping the flow from continuing northward as it trends to the east just north of the border. It's not that warm here today, have been in the 90s before yesterday, heat to return as this passes on.

[moonshinegnomie]

4. i dont understand flying a drone near a wildfire

im a drone pilot. i know the rules. i know better than to fly near a wildfire.
if a drone is spotted near a wildfire the drone pilot should be jailed for a long time. besides haveing his drone confiscated and him being banned from flying drones ever again.

do that a couple of times and people will get the message.

[Farmer-Rick]

5. Eversince the rains have stopped

I've been smelling smoke. We had some torrential, including tornados and hale, thunderstorms that nearly washed away my neighbor's pond. Trees were falling everywhere because the ground was so saturated, the roots could no longer hold the trees up onto the banks and hills.

Anyway, that has stopped and we have had several days of sunny weather here in East TN. But it now smells constantly of smoke, smells like burning wood, like at a campfire. Could I be smelling the Canadian wildfires? Could they actually be affecting us all the way to TN?

[Botany]

7. "Could I be smelling the Canadian wildfires?"

Last edited Sun Aug 20, 2023, 11:49 AM - Edit history (1)

Yes and or from some of the fires in America's west too. We have had 20 smoke days in
Central OH this summer.

There are Fires in Louisiana right now too.

[3Hotdogs]

9. I remember years ago, reading about prairie fires. I guess it would be the same scene but with

a speedier spread.

We get fires in the N.J. meadowlands. Quickly spread and then out in an hour or two.

[Nittersing]

15. I used to live near the meadows (that's what we called it back in the 60s) in a town called Leonia

Now I'm near Denver and the Marshall Fire in Boulder last year was a grass fire gone wild. The winds were so high and the area so dry that embers were blown into suburban housing areas and burned faster than FD could respond.

[highplainsdem]

10. 20 minutes of video from a Canadian news broadcast last night,

mentioning the problems with tourists and drones:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218199781

[Solly Mack]

11. They're here, too. Louisiana. One Parish over from me. Under tentative control now.

But that's the second time they've said that in the last 5 days. First time they said it high winds got everything going again.

So far, so good but they've lost several hundred acres and people were evacuated.

I'm hoping they can put it out fully.

Drought conditions and burn bans in effect.

Mild compared to all the other fires. Still...chilling.

[flying_wahini]

12. My sister lives within a mile or two of this shot. Still waiting on evac orders.

[Botany]

13. I hope the rain from Hurricane Hillary "gets up there."

n/t

[highplainsdem]

14. I've seen a lot of photos and video of the beautiful area around Kelowna

in tweets from Paul Rodgers, Bad Company's lead singer (he married a former Miss Canada and became a Canadian citizen; he and his wife also support animal shelters there and have lots of cats in their home). I always thought it looked idyllic.

These fires are horrifying. The wildfire maps of Canada, and the graphs comparing damage to previous years, are surreal.