No longer prime time news until it hits another town
Fort McMurray Fire — Zero Percent Contained, 1.2 Million Acres in Size, and Crossing Border into Saskatchewan
The
Fort McMurray Fire just keeps growing. A global warming fueled beast
whose explosive expansion even the best efforts of more than 2,000
firefighters have been helpless to check.
*****
19
May, 2016
By
mid-afternoon Thursday, reports were coming in that the Fort McMurray
Fire had again grown larger. Jumping to 1.2 million acres in size, or
about 2,000 square miles, the blaze leapt the border into Saskachewan
even as it ran through forested lands surrounding crippled tar sand
facilities. It’s a fire now approaching twice the size of Rhode
Island. A single inferno that, by itself, has now consumed more land
than every fire that burned throughout the whole of Alberta during
2015.
(Continued
explosive growth of the Fort McMurray Fire shown graphically in the
animation about. Image source: Natural
Resources Canada.)
The
fire has now encroached upon five towns and cities including Fort
McMurray, Anzac, Lenarthur, Kinosis, and Cheeham. Tar Sands
facilities encompassed by the blaze include Nexen’s Kinosis
facility, CNOOC’s Long Lake, and Suncor’s Base Plant. Numerous
other tar sands facilities now lie near the fire’s potential lines
of further expansion. You can see the insane rate of growth for this
fire in the animation above provided by the Natural Resources board
of Canada.
Fort
McMurray Continues to Prepare For Residents Return Despite Terrible
Conditions
As
the fire again expanded this week, reports coming out of Fort
McMurray showed periods of horrendous air quality. Measures hit as
high as 51 on Wednesday — which is five times a level that is
considered ‘unsafe.’ Fires also ignited in a condo complex
Thursday after a mysterious explosion claimed another Fort McMurray
home on Tuesday. Embers falling from nearby large fires may have been
the cause, but officials have so far provided no conclusive ignition
source. For safety, emergency responders again shut off gas utilities
in the city. Officials put on a brave face despite all the continued
adversity, claiming that efforts to ready for a return of people to
their homes were progressing.
Fire
at Zero Percent Containment
Despite
what is a massive firefighting effort, the enormous blaze remains
zero percent contained. Firefighters have seen some success, however,
in keeping fires from burning buildings in and around Fort McMurray
through the constant application of water and through the building of
enormous defensive fire breaks. With many trees near Fort McMurray
and tar sands facilities already consumed by fire and with winds
expected to shift toward the North and West, the blazes are expected
to mostly move away from structures by Thursday evening. A welcome
relief after fires on Tuesday and Wednesday burned down worker
barracks in the tar sands production zone.
(Massive
pall of smoke visible over Fort McMurray Fire in Saskatchewan and
Alberta. For reference, bottom edge of frame is 250 miles. Image
source: LANCE
MODIS.)
With
cooler weather and a 60 percent chance of rain today, fire conditions
may abate somewhat. Rain predicted on Saturday could also aid in
firefighting efforts. However, it is likely that this massive fire
will continue to burn over Alberta and Saskatchewan throughout a good
part of the summer.
Conditions
in the Context of Human-Caused Climate Change
Fossil
fuel burning is the primary source of the currently extreme carbon
emissions that are now fueling the wrenching climate changes and
increasingly severe wildfires in Canada. And such burning will almost
certainly push 2016 to new record hot global temperatures in the
range of 1.3 C above 1880s values. These new temperature extremes
have contributed to a combination of factors including a
comparatively rapid warming of Canada, permafrost thaw, tree death,
and strong ridge formation that have all lead to a greater potential
for dangerous wildfires.
Fort
McMurray itself now sits firmly under a northbound flow of airs
invading the polar region. Such powerful meridional flows feature
much warmer than normal air temperatures and heightened risk for
drought and wildfires. These zones have formed over recent years due
to a weakening of the Jet Stream — which has been set off by sea
ice loss and an assymetric warming of the High Arctic. Such polar
amplification has also set off permafrost thaw, aided in pine beetle
expansion northward toward and into the Arctic zone, and generated
temperatures hotter than the range in which boreal forests typically
survive and grow. Permafrost thaw combines with tree death to produce
added fuels for fires even as warming provides more lightning strike
ignition sources. This combination of global warming related factors
has resulted in large wildfires occurring in the Arctic at 10 times
their mid 20th Century ignition rate and is aiding in a greatly
increased risk of fire throughout the boreal forest zone.
Links:
Hat
tip to Greg
Hat
tip to DT Lange
Hat
tip to Wili
Hat
tip to Colorado Bob
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