Getting kinda bummed out about these wildfires . . .

[jim555]

Canada I expect an apology soon.

[GuitarStv]

Canada I expect an apology soon.

We're sorry America's fixation on the automobile and free-market capitalism has created a scenario where our forests are burning down.  :P

Low risk is a relative designation, not a guarantee there will never be a fire. Does Canada have fire risk maps?

Yep:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw


You may note that most of the areas in BC and the Yukon currently on fire aren't designated 'Very High' or 'Extreme'.  BC has had unusual heat and dryness this year.  You might also notice that most of the areas burning in Ontario and Quebec are 'Low Risk' for fire.

It seems that past predictions for avoiding dangerous fires aren't too useful in the new climate that we live.

[GilesMM]

Canada I expect an apology soon.

We're sorry America's fixation on the automobile and free-market capitalism has created a scenario where our forests are burning down.  :P

Low risk is a relative designation, not a guarantee there will never be a fire. Does Canada have fire risk maps?

Yep:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw


You may note that most of the areas in BC and the Yukon currently on fire aren't designated 'Very High' or 'Extreme'.  BC has had unusual heat and dryness this year.  You might also notice that most of the areas burning in Ontario and Quebec are 'Low Risk' for fire.

It seems that past predictions for avoiding dangerous fires aren't too useful in the new climate that we live.

Why is the risk changes abruptly from one province to another?  BC is high on the border with Yukon which is suddenly low. Same with Ontario and Manitoba.  Not sure who is making those "maps"....

[GuitarStv]

Canada I expect an apology soon.

We're sorry America's fixation on the automobile and free-market capitalism has created a scenario where our forests are burning down.  :P

Low risk is a relative designation, not a guarantee there will never be a fire. Does Canada have fire risk maps?

Yep:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw


You may note that most of the areas in BC and the Yukon currently on fire aren't designated 'Very High' or 'Extreme'.  BC has had unusual heat and dryness this year.  You might also notice that most of the areas burning in Ontario and Quebec are 'Low Risk' for fire.

It seems that past predictions for avoiding dangerous fires aren't too useful in the new climate that we live.

Why is the risk changes abruptly from one province to another?  BC is high on the border with Yukon which is suddenly low. Same with Ontario and Manitoba.  Not sure who is making those "maps"....

As indicated in the links, the maps are made by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.  They're collated from data collected from each province, and the provinces may use slightly different methods for calculating fire risk (probably why you sometimes see a jump when crossing borders).

[seattlecyclone]

BC, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut all seem to be on the same page, with same-color areas connecting pretty seamlessly across borders. Then you get to Manitoba and Yukon where they're all like "nope, low risk all the way across."

[GuitarStv]

BC, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut all seem to be on the same page, with same-color areas connecting pretty seamlessly across borders. Then you get to Manitoba and Yukon where they're all like "nope, low risk all the way across."

Heh . . . Quebec looks a little suspiciously safe too.  :P

[RetiredAt63]

BC, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut all seem to be on the same page, with same-color areas connecting pretty seamlessly across borders. Then you get to Manitoba and Yukon where they're all like "nope, low risk all the way across."

Heh . . . Quebec looks a little suspiciously safe too.  :P

Given New Brunswick is mostly forest, and Nova Scotia has had some really bad fires lately, their blue index also seems a bit, um, optimistic?

[Villanelle]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything. 

[deborah]

That Canadian map is the fire danger for just one day.

[Heckler]

Canada I expect an apology soon.

I'm sorry that the entire "first world" is focused on burning as much fossil fuel as possible to increase their "freedom" to drive or fly whenever, wherever...

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/

[Heckler]

What are you going to do about it?

[former player]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

[GuitarStv]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

'Move or die' - sure.  But where's safe though?  You can't rely on history to tell you, so it's kinda a crapshoot.

[Frugal Lizard]

Friends of family are now sheltering in Alberta. They evacuated from Yellowknife with the RV loaded with all the family photos they could gather, three dogs and a hamster. My stepmom is preparing guest rooms for them to come to Ontario for some time if there is no home to go home to. Yellowknife is 4,650km away. But it feels a helluva lot closer to us.

[GilesMM]

That Canadian map is the fire danger for just one day.

You are right. I’m not sure Canada has fire risk maps. Perhaps insurers have them.

[Villanelle]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless.  Move or die from a fire, maybe.  But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane"  or "die in a fire or die in a tornado"  or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure".  There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point.  There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish)  disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.

[GilesMM]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless.  Move or die from a fire, maybe.  But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane"  or "die in a fire or die in a tornado"  or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure".  There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point.  There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish)  disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.

Colorado and New Mexico are popular alternatives with very low natural disasters.  In the coming decades, this may even push up real estate in those states.


https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/safest-places-in-america-where-the-chance-of-natural-disasters-striking-is-the-lowest/

[GuitarStv]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless.  Move or die from a fire, maybe.  But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane"  or "die in a fire or die in a tornado"  or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure".  There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point.  There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish)  disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.

Colorado and New Mexico are popular alternatives with very low natural disasters.  In the coming decades, this may even push up real estate in those states.


https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/safest-places-in-america-where-the-chance-of-natural-disasters-striking-is-the-lowest/

Not sure those suggestions are particularly rock solid:

"Coloradans are familiar with the threats and impacts of natural disasters, including droughts, wildfires, floods, and tornadoes." - https://cwcb.colorado.gov/focus-areas/hazards

"Colorado has routinely been impacted by floods, wildfires, severe weather events, and other disasters over the past century. Due to the impacts of climate change, including increasing drought, higher temperatures, and more erratic weather patterns, Colorado will continue to experience major disasters over the coming years. This is why incorporating resilience principles into community and statewide planning practices is so important—it will help ensure that Coloradans are prepared for these future events and able to withstand them and build back better.

Flooding, wildfire, and drought  are the primary hazard events that Coloradans are most likely to experience, though  many other natural and man-made hazards  threaten communities across Colorado. You can learn more about some of the major natural disasters that Colorado has faced over the past decades in the map below." - https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e9c57aa1c8ed4317868982a43ddfdcbc

"A new study ranked Colorado in the top five states most at risk of a natural disaster"

"In Colorado there's an average of $464 million in damage statewide each year -- which works out to $220 in property damage per household. One major hail storm in 2017 was responsible for billions of dollars in damage.

Colorado's costliest year was 2017, mostly due to the largest hailstorm in state history. On May 8, baseball-sized hail in the West Denver area during the evening commute resulted in $2.3 billion in home and automobile damage" - https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-ranked-states-risk-natural-disaster/

[StarBright]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless.  Move or die from a fire, maybe.  But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane"  or "die in a fire or die in a tornado"  or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure".  There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point.  There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish)  disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.

While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country. 

As someone who grew up in tornado alley, tornadoes are about the easiest natural disaster to prepare for (in terms of saving lives).

I currently live just south of the 42 on Lake Erie (or 10 miles from the Lake), and our weather is really remaining quite temperate compared to other places I've lived. Our rain patterns have gotten a bit funky, but we installed a back up sump pump last year and upgraded our basement waterproofing.

Our town is upgrading their sewer systems currently and starting to talk about burying power lines.

In the grand scheme of not safe, it seems like tornados and floods from rain are definitely easier to mitigate through infrastructure than fires, hurricanes, and tidal floods?

[GilesMM]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless.  Move or die from a fire, maybe.  But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane"  or "die in a fire or die in a tornado"  or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure".  There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point.  There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish)  disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.

While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country. 

As someone who grew up in tornado alley, tornadoes are about the easiest natural disaster to prepare for (in terms of saving lives).

I currently live just south of the 42 on Lake Erie (or 10 miles from the Lake), and our weather is really remaining quite temperate compared to other places I've lived. Our rain patterns have gotten a bit funky, but we installed a back up sump pump last year and upgraded our basement waterproofing.

Our town is upgrading their sewer systems currently and starting to talk about burying power lines.

In the grand scheme of not safe, it seems like tornados and floods are definitely easier to mitigate through infrastructure than fires, hurricanes, and tidal floods?

 


I agree - I would take a tornado over a fire or flood any day.

[Kris]

What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!

I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.

The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas".  That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees.  We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires.  That's not a meaningful solution to anything.

So what is "a meaningful solution"?

There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die".  That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.

Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.

The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless.  Move or die from a fire, maybe.  But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane"  or "die in a fire or die in a tornado"  or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure".  There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point.  There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish)  disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.

While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country. 

This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.

[StarBright]

While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country. 

This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.

We have had other, better, job opportunities open up for my husband in the last few years and have decided to stay put.

At one point we were comparing Northern Ohio to Texas and Southern California, and then to the Santa Barbara area. Some family thought we were crazy to put environmental concerns on our pro/con list, but we have young children so we were thinking longer term than 20 years.

We don't always love it here, but we feel fairly secure that we are making the best choice for our kids and for long term employment for my husband (ie. what good is tenure if your college burns down? Which almost happened to one of the places that he was considering).   

[Just Joe]

These fires have left me thinking about ways to protect our house from a wildfire. We have trees, I could cut the treeline back even further. Different roofing, different siding, ways to wet the house down with water and foam....

What I'd really like the most would be lasting, real action on the part of governments and corporations to help the environment, not just cutting down our trees to move the tree line back.

[Kris]

While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country. 

This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.

We have had other, better, job opportunities open up for my husband in the last few years and have decided to stay put.

At one point we were comparing Northern Ohio to Texas and Southern California, and then to the Santa Barbara area. Some family thought we were crazy to put environmental concerns on our pro/con list, but we have young children so we were thinking longer term than 20 years.

We don't always love it here, but we feel fairly secure that we are making the best choice for our kids and for long term employment for my husband (ie. what good is tenure if your college burns down? Which almost happened to one of the places that he was considering).

Ha -- yeah, I ended up sorta dodging a bullet in that respect, as it turns out. One of the places I was considering a tenure-track position is now somewhere I would never want to live because of increasing hurricane activity and likelihood of the area soon being underwater. If I had taken that position, I would currently be trying hard as hell to get out of there.

[Kmp2]

Ugh, noticing that the Okanogan has seen Aqi levels as high as 1200! Eeek, the highest I've seen was 800. At the moment there are lots of 300-600's.
from: https://www.iqair.com/air-quality-map

This is what I meant when I said 'pea soup smog' earlier in the thread. It was a reference to an old british saying about london smog's when they had an inversion and all the coal smoke settled near ground level. My great grandfather and grandfather used to tell stories about it.

So far the wind is mostly keeping the smoke in BC and south, but I'm expecting the prairies will see it soon as that is what the prevailing winds usually do. We might have ended last school year smoked in, and start this one smoked in too...

[SunnyDays]

While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country. 

This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.

Yup, me too.

I’m just north of the 49th parallel, and as much as I curse our winters, our biggest threat is tornadoes and they seem to be moving more eastward lately.  Although I’m technically in a flood plain, there is no river anywhere near my small city.  There has been some overland flooding from torrential rains combined with snowmelt, but it’s uncommon.  Grass fires could be an issue, as summers have been getting hotter and dryer, but in my immediate area, not common either.  I think it’s pretty safe compared to lots of other places.