Incendiary Solutions

"[British Columbia has] a landscape that's full of contiguous fuel. There's any number of combinations [contributing to wildfire potential; topography, weather, fuel] there."
"When it's doing those runs [such as a fire vortex], you just back off."
Robert Gray, fire ecologist, Chilliwack, British Columbia

"It doesn't matter how much rain you've had in the spring or winter; once the snow's gone you give me a week of hot, dry, windy weather, I can give you a raging inferno."
"It;s just Mother Nature, cycle of life, and if anything, it may be beneficial to the forest."
Mike Flannigan, professor, fire researcher, University of Alberta

"Really, it is one of our primary firefighting tactics [stalling a fire by removing its flammable fuel]."
"When you see them [firefighters setting a back burn] in action, being used for a burn-off on a wide-scale operation, it's pretty impressive."
Claire Allen, fire information officer

A wildfire burns on a logging road approximately 20 km southwest of Fort St. James, B.C., on Aug. 15, 2018. Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press

The government of British Columbia declared a state of emergency last week in the face of 500 wildfires threatening the forests of the province, and in some instances, human habitation, necessitating evacuation of thousands of people, and an alert to many thousands of others who might be in harm's way should the wildfire close to their community approach so threateningly close that they must be prepared to evacuate on order.

Over three thousand, five hundred firefighters and support staff are working non-stop to control wildfires. Of that number 731 people are from out-of-province working alongside over a hundred members of the military deployed to assist the firefighters. Most of those fires were spontaneous, caused by lightning strikes, in a highly combustible environment of dry and brittle matter on the forest floor and trees obligingly accelerating the fires as hot winds encourage the spread.

Those fires that burn in remote and isolated areas are not considered a priority, and are left to burn themselves out, that conclusion reliant on the fact that scientists now recognize the ecological and practical benefits that ensue from forest fires. Those forests will in time regenerate; the forests that were at their prime will be renewed with new growth in nature's endless cycle. In another sense a burnt area is a bonus since the next fire season it will represent a fire break that could conceivably bring a fresh wildfire to a halt for lack of fuel.

At the present time there are 550 wildfires burning in British Columbia. Discounting attending to those in remote areas or difficult terrain where water bombers cannot fly and firefighters are unable to approach, those whose proximity to towns are viewed as high risk and are priorities for aggressive shut-down. Smoke from all these fires blankets Western Canada. Forty-eight evacuation alerts have gone out, affecting 15,770 people, while 4,830 people have already received 31 evacuation orders.

Smoke billows over the northern shoreline of Nadina Lake, B.C., captured in a photo by a helicopter pilot who has been working on the fires in the area. (Dylan De La Mare)

On windy days the fires go through immense growth spurts in a forest landscape that can be endless as well as hot and dry in the wildfire season. Atmospheric conditions have the potential to create a fire vortex, where the resulting fierce energy feeds the fire to immense proportions to the extent that no intervention can take place; such fires left to their own devices until the environment changes. Such fires are capable of leaping the area of a football field in fifteen minutes.

The Shovel Lake fire, the largest blaze at the moment taking up some 850 square kilometres, less than ten kilometres from the village of Fraser Lake, was roused to more rapid expansion resulting from windy weather last week. One firefighting tactic in the face of such immense, swift-burning fires is a backburn where a fire is deliberately set in front of the wildfire to burn up the fuel, leaving the large out-of-control fire no flammable material, so it dies.

Fire retardant or water dropped from planes and helicopters represent another tactic. Digging firebreaks by hand or with machinery, trying to use natural breaks like rivers and roads to guide, fight and discourage fire spread represent additional tactics in response to wildfires. Those that pose no threat to towns and human life, well in the interior, are simply left.

The variety of types of fires also predicates their outcomes. One burning in the forest canopy, feeding on the tops of trees is recognized as unstoppable. Another type of fire smouldering in the ground can continue to burn for a lengthy period of time; months, even years.

A helicopter being used to fight a smaller fire nearby flies past a large plume of smoke rising from a wildfire near Fraser Lake, B.C., on Aug. 15. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)