350 forest fires burning in British Columbia.

[Mousefield]

We have over 350 forest fires burning in British Columbia. Sadly a water bomber crashed a few days ago fighting the fires and the two pilots were killed. They have a campfire ban in most of our province. It has been hot for many weeks in most of the province and now we are getting lighting strikes. Looks like it will get worse before it gets better. The are bringing in fire fighters from the province of Alberta and Ontario to help. Some of the cities have banned smoking in the parks and beaches as well. Probably a good thing as many of the fires are caused by humans.

 

[Egon]

All the dead Pine Beetle Pines make for nice fires. Perhaps some of the fires will eliminate the beetles in some areas.

 

[jimmyj]

Wow, that's scary.

 

[jinjimbob]

All the dead Pine Beetle Pines make for nice fires. Perhaps some of the fires will eliminate the beetles in some areas.

And here lies the problem.... they are putting these fires out, not letting nature takes its course. This makes the beetle problems even worse than ever.

 

[charlz]

We almost didn't have a fire season last year, this year it is off to a very late start and only a few fires so far. I was in Montana visiting my folks last week. Just a few miles from their house a 10-day old lighting strike suddenly came to life. Was about 10 acres when first reported. About 6 hours later it had already covered about 700 acres. Flames going a good 90-100 feet in the air when it would flare up a tree. By the time they got it out a 1000 acres or so was toast.

 

[charlz]

And here lies the problem.... they are putting these fires out, not letting nature takes its course. This makes the beetle problems even worse than ever.

Possible but I have also seen reference that the pine beetle is very susceptible to cold. The spread of the beetle was attributed to mild winters. I don't know that the beetle is selective to mature trees. Even if you let the forests burn they might come back just as thick in the young trees.

 

[Mousefield]

Possible but I have also seen reference that the pine beetle is very susceptible to cold. The spread of the beetle was attributed to mild winters. I don't know that the beetle is selective to mature trees. Even if you let the forests burn they might come back just as thick in the young trees.

There are many millions of dead pine trees. Several years ago I was up in the interior of BC and it was just amazing how many brown trees there were. Sometimes it would be a big group of then but often just a few in a stand of say 50-100. The pine beetle goes after the mature trees, apparently it does not go after young ones. To be killed they need a real cold winter, something like 50 below for a week. Also heard we are up to 380 forest fires now. July was the 2nd driest and 2nd warmest on record.