brush fires and major evacuations in Fort Mac, Alberta

[Jim Marusak]

temperatures in the upper 20's and lower 30's C (upper 70's and low 80's), combined with other fire-weather conditions have led to brush fires over in northeastern Alberta, with one of the fires now upon the city of Fort MacMurray (CYMM for us mets). The city has grown over the years from only near 10k to as high as 60k since the tar sands boom. And now the entire city has been evacuated (45k apparently to the southwest towards Edmonton and 15k to the north towards the town of Fort McKay. And several neighborhoods have partially or entirely burned, with the fires still raging through the city.

 

A very tragic start to a brush fire season in western North America that may get quite ugly, if this is any indication.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-wildfire-remains-out-of-control-after-city-evacuated-1.3563977

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-man-credits-neighbour-girlfriend-with-saving-him-from-burning-home-1.3565534

 

http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Canada/2016/05/03/22629634.html

 

as for the upcoming weather the next 7 days, sunny and hot today with temps between 27 and 30C with winds to 50kph, cooler with a few showers tomorrow with highs in the mid 10's C, then sunny and hot once again (relatively speaking) with highs approaching 27 C, then Monday and most of next week outlooked to be in the low 10's C, and more substantial showers (and hopefully not any thunderstorms) on Monday.

 

[Stebo]

Yesterday their temperature was 32.5c which is 90.5f this was a record breaking temperature. The old record was 27.5c or 81.5f.

[MichiganLion]

UGLY situation.  Sizable town (around 80K) very isolated from other folk, literally 1 road in and 1 road out, extremely dry and warm weather, and in a region where wildfires can burn extremely intensely.

 

Hope for the best, but it's a tough tough situation.

[JasonOH]

Soundings from Edmonton show classic fire weather profiles. This is about as ugly as it gets. There is a webcam at the airport, it Nav Canada can't keep it up due to massive web traffic.

Edit: the smoke plume is almost 16000 feet high.

[Jim Marusak]

being part of a city-wide evacuation back in the mid 1980's (Spencer Metal fire affecting Nanticoke PA), that has to be a really scary feeling not only for the adults, but especially the kids. definitely something that will change their lives forever. But Fort Mac is now 88000 people, not the 60k I heard before, and my home town was only like 13k.

 

as for developments up there, I am hearing one of the work camps north of town where some of the residents went to was possibly being evacuated as well. The province has already declared Fort MacMurray and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo disaster areas. the Canadian Government is matching donations to the Red Cross dollar for dollar, and has C-130s ready for transport out of CFB Cold Lake (CYOD near WHN) and CFB Trenton (CYTR, east of Toronto) if needed to get supplies up there and people out.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/more-evacuation-orders-issued-for-fort-mcmurray-area-1.3566310

 

on top of that, people that evacuated to towns immediately south of Fort Mac have to evacuate again because those towns are now in danger from this fire.

 

and there are now Air Quality warnings for portions of Saskatchewan (Buffalo Narrows, Clearwater Provincial Park, and Meadow Lake) and Alberta (Fort Mac of course, as well as Fort McKay, Lac La Biche, St Paul (an Edmonton Exurb), and Cold Lake, including the Canadian Forces Base)

 

live updates on the Fort Mac situation from the CBC here... 

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/breaking/fort-mcmurray-wildfire-may5/

[Roger Smith]

The smoke is spreading south a long way already, Kindersley SK (YKY) has smoke haze in NNW winds and reduced visibility.

 

I think some smoke reports will come in tomorrow from the Dakotas and western Minnesota then the effects will gradually disperse downstream over 3-5 days but eventually some people in the Midwest, GL and northeast U.S. and southern ON may have at least minor smoke presence as elevated layers. You can certainly expect a few weeks of very colorful sunsets.

 

The fires appear to have jumped past Fort Mac to some extent and have caused evacuations further south at Anzac, a smaller town on a lake near the highway south. Basically the entire city of Fort McMurray has been evacuated and fire damage seems to be confined to two neighbourhoods (the city is really a collection of small towns separated by corridors of bush which is part of the problem here).

 

There were reports that pyro-cumulus clouds yesterday were discharging lightning (the radar echoes that were depicted above).

 

As most of you know the cold front is well south of the region now and winds have shifted to NW 20-30 mph but in fire zones there could be much higher gusts and unpredictable vortices. There is very little actual rain in the forecast for at least five days.

 

As to cause, I would say El Nino dry winter pattern is much more of a factor than climate change, unless you want to speculate that human activity can enhance the El Nino. Personally I think wildfires like this must have been a problem ever since the boreal forest replaced the retreating glaciers, and before modern times some of these fires spread a lot more extensively than they can nowadays, what was there to stop them? We can never know but there may have been times when the entire western Canadian boreal forest was consumed by mega-fires, and the same can be said for the forests of the western (and eastern) United States.

[harrisale]

Incredible photo from Fort McMurray. Note the pileus cap on the pyro-cumulus.

[chubbs]

Once per day zoomed in satellite pic from Worldview. Moving slider or clicking > over past few days shows how fire has spread. Two other fires in region showing up today.

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=geographic&l=MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Fires_All,Reference_Labels,Reference_Features,Coastlines&t=2016-05-05&v=-114.55749021978508,54.6256578208086,-108.93249021978508,58.4313218833086

[Geos]

http://www.webcams.travel/webcam/fullscreen/1349193322

 

Image from YMM in real time.

[Jim Marusak]

the combination of smoke from the fires in Fort Mac and the one going on near a lake near Brainerd has air quality numbers reaching as high as 248 here in the twin cities metro, and you can smell the smoke quite prominently outside.

 

0-50 being good, 51-100 being so-so, 100-150 being not good for sensitive groups, 150-200 being crappy, and 200-300 being very crappy. anything over 300, we're looking at death smog and/or china-like conditions.

[Ottawa Blizzard]

The smoke is spreading south a long way already, Kindersley SK (YKY) has smoke haze in NNW winds and reduced visibility.

 

I think some smoke reports will come in tomorrow from the Dakotas and western Minnesota then the effects will gradually disperse downstream over 3-5 days but eventually some people in the Midwest, GL and northeast U.S. and southern ON may have at least minor smoke presence as elevated layers. You can certainly expect a few weeks of very colorful sunsets.

 

The fires appear to have jumped past Fort Mac to some extent and have caused evacuations further south at Anzac, a smaller town on a lake near the highway south. Basically the entire city of Fort McMurray has been evacuated and fire damage seems to be confined to two neighbourhoods (the city is really a collection of small towns separated by corridors of bush which is part of the problem here).

 

There were reports that pyro-cumulus clouds yesterday were discharging lightning (the radar echoes that were depicted above).

 

As most of you know the cold front is well south of the region now and winds have shifted to NW 20-30 mph but in fire zones there could be much higher gusts and unpredictable vortices. There is very little actual rain in the forecast for at least five days.

 

As to cause, I would say El Nino dry winter pattern is much more of a factor than climate change, unless you want to speculate that human activity can enhance the El Nino. Personally I think wildfires like this must have been a problem ever since the boreal forest replaced the retreating glaciers, and before modern times some of these fires spread a lot more extensively than they can nowadays, what was there to stop them? We can never know but there may have been times when the entire western Canadian boreal forest was consumed by mega-fires, and the same can be said for the forests of the western (and eastern) United States.

Agree with this statement.  Also, dry winters and hot summers have led to wildfires in other parts of the world throughout history. The Great Fire of London in 1666 is an example. Apparently the summer of 1666 had been an unusually hot, bone dry summer in London, England. Given the city was essentially made of wood at the time, all it took was a spark to start a disaster and that's just what happened.

 

In the end though, regardless of what is causing this, it is a human and environmental tragedy.

[janetjanet998]

The width of this picture is about 60 miles taken  MAY 6th

 

 

 

(Fort McMurray Fire as seen from above in the May 6 NASA/LANCE MODIS satellite shot. This huge fire now covers an approximate 10×40 mile swath of land, is throwing off numerous pyrocumulous clouds, and has spawned a secondary large fire to the northeast. In the upper left hand corner of the image above we see the bald landscapes of tar sands facilities. Smoke plume analysis indicates that the northern extent of this monstrous fire is just 3 miles to the south of the nearest tar sands facility in this shot. For purposes of scale, bottom edge of frame is 60 miles. Image source: LANCE-MODIS.)

[janetjanet998]

unless widespread rain, This could burn for weeks and even months like some on this list

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wildfires#Canada_and_the_United_States

 

 

now at 385.000 acres

[Chinook]

Wow, I really feel for them. 385000 acres is a lot. I had 87000 acres burn near me, and that's a lot, but there was no chance of the flames getting into Fort Collins. But it looks like Fort McMurray has had major damage. Fires do burn for a long time, when there's that much territory.

[chubbs]

Large forest fires in Russia also.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/massive-forest-fires-blaze-in-russias-siberia-and-far-east/569109.html

[Coach McGuirk]

In the long run, would all this ash in the atmosphere inhibit global warming or expedite it?