WesWorld

Anybody know where in Alberta he lives?

IIRC from the chatting with him, I believe that it was Grande Prairie or somewhere around there. Could be wrong.

... unless he has moved in that time. Sure hope not towards Fort McMurray.

Quoted from "Rooijen10"

IIRC from the chatting with him, I believe that it was Grande Prairie or somewhere around there. Could be wrong.

... unless he has moved in that time. Sure hope not towards Fort McMurray.

His FB page says Hythe, Alberta. If he's still there, Hythe is on the western side of the province; Fort McMurray on the eastern side. Let's hope he's still in Hythe.

Considering that it is Canada, 54 km west of Grande Prairie is good enough for me to qualify as "somewhere around there".

Quoted from "BruceDuncan"

Quoted from "Rooijen10"

IIRC from the chatting with him, I believe that it was Grande Prairie or somewhere around there. Could be wrong.

... unless he has moved in that time. Sure hope not towards Fort McMurray.

His FB page says Hythe, Alberta. If he's still there, Hythe is on the western side of the province; Fort McMurray on the eastern side. Let's hope he's still in Hythe.

I'll second that. Thanks, Bruce.

Learned this morning that my brother-in-law's two houses burned yesterday. His business was destroyed on Tuesday. At least they'd evacuated before things got crazy like you see in the videos.

So sorry for their losses, but at least things can be replaced; thankfully the loss of life in this tragedy have been mercifully small. I fear it could have been far worse.

Mrs. Rock reminded me that there were a few unique things that couldn't be replaced, but you're right in general and I agree - houses can be re-built, clothes and furniture replaced. Until then, they're going to crash with my mother-in-law, who has enough rooms, and see about getting the girls into the local schools to finish the year.

I'm personally quite surprised that there've been no direct fatalities yet, because a lot of people have been waiting until the very last minute to leave. A smaller town got partially burned in 2012 so I think Canada's got to wake up and recognize that this is not a one-off thing.

Given that I live on the edge of a forest and that it's been pretty dry here, I think I'll be doing some emergency planning of my own.

True, some things cannot be replaced, but in the grand scheme of life they are a small part. Preparation is always a good idea; where I live water is the threat, not the solution - but my father had the foresight to build above the forty-foot contour, so I am relatively safe from coastal flooding. Some spots nearby however are not. A lot of towns in the area are still trying to rebuild from Superstorm Sandy, and I fear that their efforts will end up for nought - the land is just too low. When the ocean laps at your back door at a normal high tide, you have a problem...

We could probably have wildfires here, but today's the last sunny day on my ten-day forecast; everything else is rain. Haven't even been able to mow my fores... I mean, my lawn recently because it's been so consistently wet.

Wish I could've shared some of it with your brother-in-law, Rocky! At least they're safe.

That's the important thing.

Our largest risk is spring flooding from the nearby river, which can jam up and flood the area. Things got a bit hairy two years ago - the neighbour's kids were canoeing in the pasture around us - but it's a slow-moving thing compared to a fire.

Anyway, there's some conflicting info about the B-I-L's neighbourhood, so I'm hoping that the firefighter who told him the houses were gone yesterday had spoken prematurely.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36224767

If you scroll down a bit you have satellite views from May 3 and May 4 so if you can recognize things from above, maybe those views can tell you something.

That'll be a useful resource in a day or two, but his area was only hit last night. Thanks, though.

Sorry to hear about your brother-in-law's loss.
From the pictures I've seen it looks terrifying. Thankfully we don't get many wildfires in the UK and mainly on moorland.

Up here in NW England we're enjoying the first sunshine in what seems like years. Only last week we had snow and this week its 20 degrees!
El Nino sure gives everyone weird weather, but then every year seems to be abnormal these days. Not sure how folks can deny climate change, even from my childhood its obvious the weather and seasons are not what they were. In fact its been hard to tell which season we're in for the last few years, summer has been not much than 3-4 weeks of sun and heat for the last 3-4 years.

Quoted

Not sure how folks can deny climate change

The climate changed when the earth was hit by this catastrophic event called the Ice Age thousands and thousands of years ago. Right now Earth is returning to a pre Ice Age level... and we are lending her a hand to achieve that.

Sorry to hear about the damage those fires did but as said by others before - your family made it out in time and that's all that counts in the end.

Regarding nature striking back I'm surprised several of you are in areas where it could happen any other season. For me and my family this really is nothing to worry about. Although living in an area with forest neaby, our village is far enough away to be in danger. Water also is no threat as the little water we have flowing through our town will never raise its level 30+m to reach my home. And hurricanes, blizzards and all the likes we do not know in our neighborhood too. Add to that the lack of vulcanoes, earthquakes and unstable grounds that could collapse, there is really little to fear except a normal heavy rain or thunderstorm. And given that we live "on the right side" of the next mountain range (the Taunus), providing protection from the usual bad weather coming from the West, we do not even have that many thunderstorms per year...

Taunus? Seems rather close to the Eifel to me even if you are on the East side of it...

Yes, indeed. We are not too far from the Eifel. However, for millions of years there has been no vulcanic activity anymore in the Eifel. So there is little to fear. All we actually have are very minor earthquakes every other year. They are harly heavy enough to make your living room lamp swing from the roof, but they are there. Their origin lies in the so-called Rheingraben, but there is not enough activity to cause any harm, actually.

According to wiki:

Quoted

The last volcanic eruptions in the Laacher See volcanic site took place around 10,000 years ago and generated a huge volume of volcanic ash, now found in thin ash layers in contemporaneous sediments throughout Europe. The volcanism of the Eifel is thought to be partly caused by the Eifel hotspot, a place where hot material from deep in the mantle rises to the surface, and partly by melt-ascent at deep fractures in the Earth's crust. Research has shown that the volcanism is still active; the Eifel region is rising by 1–2 mm per year.

Historically, the Eifel volcanoes had inactive phases of 10,000 to 20,000 years between active phases, suggesting there is a possibility of future eruptions.

To me 10,000 years is a lot better than millions of years since the latter case would actually make it a ticking time bomb.

There are some tremors here as well... but their origin lies in the construction site some 50 meters away where they are building new houses and I get the impression the workers in the machines are treating them as race cars... and it is going to be fun when they start to ram those piles into the ground again and bounce me out of bed...



Kinda interesting that the Alberta fire (which according to wildfire.alberta.ca is still out of control) appears to have completely dropped off the international radar now that it has torched and passed Fort McMurray. At least I have not seen anything on the usual news sites I visit these last few days.

Thinking about it now, this summer it will be 20 years ago that I was going to the Klondike region with my dad and my uncle and at one point we could not go on due to the road to Dawson City being closed because of a forest fire. We and numerous other people heading North stayed along the side of the road for the night and fortunately it had rained a bit during the night and it was deemed okay to move on (so obviously nowhere near as bad as the one that hit Fort McMurray)... so at one point you start to drive through a blackened area that was still smoldering here and there with smoke going up. That was the closest I have been to a forest fire and to me it was close enough.I have been in a number of other areas in the Canadian Rockies that had been hit by forest fires but those happened many years before I visited those sites.

It's kind of like a hurricane that swings back off to the ocean after making landfall - nobody's in danger, so interest drops.

There's still a lot of firefighters and gear in the area, making sure the city's safe if the weather shifts and brings the fire back, but government's looking now at clean-up and making the place habitable again.