What Is The Weather Today II (No Mercury Jockeying)

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

At least they are getting rain now, hopefully they can put the fires out!

Every mountain town should immediately cut all trees down within like 2km of town, crazy to say that for places like Banff or Canmore!

Canmore is looking at a MASSIVE fire protection plan with 300m cuts in some cases along the mountain sides.

[Calgarian]

Good, will be a shame to cut back the nature that makes the place special, but better than losing a town of 15 000 people.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by Airboy

If St Marys is gone there not much left. Wonder how many hotels are still standing. Since the fire entered near the Forest Park.

If the Maligne Lodge, the Church and Jasper Park Lodge are all gone, the entire southern half of town is gone, likely including downtown. Just heartbreaking to see!

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Jasper sounds like it's mostly gone now, the fires are just getting worse every year. Summer isn't fun anymore, I'm not ready for cold but winter needs to come and put out all these fires!

+1. Every summer now (at least in Western Canada) basically starts with the grim thought: "I wonder what towns are going to burn to the ground this year".

We need to start getting serious about building permanent fire breaks around towns & cities in fire-prone areas. Maybe even install heavy-duty irrigation systems in them that can be activated in the event of a fire.

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

https://x.com/mrsbutterfly34/status/...510440/photo/1

That was right in the centre of town too: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7AJNtRTCxgGYHrjY7

If even the church is gone then I imagine so too is the rest of the downtown core...

[Calgarian]

We need to build buildings that can resist fires. That means concrete, block, steel and no wood. There are people in West Kelowna who bought "fire proof" homes that burned down last summer. Turns out wood framing isn't fire proof!

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

We need to build buildings that can resist fires. That means concrete, block, steel and no wood. There are people in West Kelowna who bought "fire proof" homes that burned down last summer. Turns out wood framing isn't fire proof!

Unless we're building concrete bunkers though, noncombustible buildings still have combustible elements & finishes throughout; and if put through a fire will be as good as gone - even if the structure is still standing. Plus, in a region of abundant lumber resources it would be weird (and more expensive) not to build with wood.

We're better off protecting the entirety of the towns themselves rather than focusing on making individual buildings fireproof.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

We need to build buildings that can resist fires. That means concrete, block, steel and no wood. There are people in West Kelowna who bought "fire proof" homes that burned down last summer. Turns out wood framing isn't fire proof!

Stone buildings - like the kind built in centuries past and still stand today - would be fantastic for structural resiliency. And of course with modern construction and engineering applications.

[Coldrsx]

'30-50% of structures' fully destroyed.

[MonctonRad]

Absolutely devastating. One of the nicest mountain towns in North America.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Stone buildings - like the kind built in centuries past and still stand today - would be fantastic for structural resiliency. And of course with modern construction and engineering applications.

As MonkeyRonin mentioned, the construction of the buildings is more or less meaningless in these types of fires.

The fire will burn out the contents of a building, and then whatever is left standing will be smoke/fire/char damaged sufficiently that it will be a total loss either way.

In a situation like this, it's almost better to just have total losses than try to remediate burnt out structures.

[Airboy]

Photos coming out appear that parts of the main drag are in tact. Astoria looks like its still there. So Probably the train station as well. However the fire track would have taken out most residential areas. Possibly a good portion of hotels to. Lobstick , Marmot and Forrest park would have been in the main conflagration.

Current estimate 30-50% loss

No word from across the road about Takera or the Alpine Village cabins.

[SignalHillHiker]

I really don't understand how it cannot be stopped at the edge of town, and hope I never have to. I'd want to, I don't know, put a temporary sprinkler on every roof and lamppost pumping from the river, let it run for days if necessary.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Brutal smoke in Calgary now, air quality was listed as 11+ last night.

Jasper sounds like it's mostly gone now, the fires are just getting worse every year. Summer isn't fun anymore, I'm not ready for cold but winter needs to come and put out all these fires!

Last night we were choking on the smoke and had to turn off the AC when it was still 30 degrees. I just put in a furnace filter that can handle micro particles and smoke and it still smelled like a campfire coming through the vents. A couple of co-workers didn’t make it in this morning cause the smoke made them sick. Was checking the weather app and it looked like smoke from a fire near Cranbrook was going directly into Calgary and missing Okotoks and Airdrie. We were lucky until this point there was no smoke. But now we’re back to the new normal .

Horrible news about Jasper. I’ve always wanted to visit and almost did one summer but roadwork trapped us at the Icefields. I’m heartbroken seeing the images. Worries me about Banff being next.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker;10253313[/QUOTE

I really don't understand how it cannot be stopped at the edge of town, and hope I never have to. I'd want to, I don't know, put a temporary sprinkler on every roof and lamppost pumping from the river, let it run for days if necessary.

The wall of flame was 400 feet high (as per CBC) and conditions transformed it into an out of control fire storm. Nothing on earth could have halted that.

Edit: Article here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...cial-1.7274825

"Fire crews were witnessing 300- to 400-foot flames in a fully involved, continuous crown fire and a fire spread rate of approximately 15 metres per minute."

[giallo]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I really don't understand how it cannot be stopped at the edge of town, and hope I never have to. I'd want to, I don't know, put a temporary sprinkler on every roof and lamppost pumping from the river, let it run for days if necessary.

When a fire gets so big that it basically creates its own weather, you're really at a loss at what you can do to stop it.

North Kelowna has a body of water (Okanagan Lake) stretching two kilometres long that separates it from West Kelowna, and that didn't stop the fire from hopping over the lake, and spreading last year.

[SignalHillHiker]

Terrifying. I hope it doesn't happen to us. We had one modern wooden structure fire (Harvey Road Fire) that destroyed the commercial area of my neighbourhood in the 90s, and one wildfire that nearly destroyed a subdivision a few years ago, but that's really it for big stuff, and neither big enough to compare with what Alberta has been facing.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Unless we're building concrete bunkers though, noncombustible buildings still have combustible elements & finishes throughout; and if put through a fire will be as good as gone - even if the structure is still standing. Plus, in a region of abundant lumber resources it would be weird (and more expensive) not to build with wood.

We're better off protecting the entirety of the towns themselves rather than focusing on making individual buildings fireproof.

The idea is to reduce the risk of that building becoming fully engulfed and helping spread the fire to neighbouring buildings, and also to help prevent it from burning down completely. Fair point though, given enough heat, almost anything can burn

[Nicko999]

At 6PM: Shoal Lake, MB has a dewpoint of 26.9C. Warmest recorded this year in the country. Nearby Brandon with 25C+ dewpoints as well so the reading looks plausible.
If only they could have transferred some of that extra humidity to Jasper ☹️

[MonctonRad]

We just had a nice prolonged heavy shower in Moncton I would have liked to transfer to Jasper too.

[1ajs]

s

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I really don't understand how it cannot be stopped at the edge of town, and hope I never have to. I'd want to, I don't know, put a temporary sprinkler on every roof and lamppost pumping from the river, let it run for days if necessary.

when u get a fire storm its a blast furnace u cant do anything other then foam everything water can only do so much and theres only so much fire foam out there so its a hard one


but usualy what gets buildings is the windows blow out or fire starts on the roofs sofits and gets in the attics

but yea when u get a fire storm u gotta get outa there. theres not allot u can do as fire creates its own winds and it takes off like a freight train so u gotta pick ur battle point and umm if u had every hydrant going in jasper the wtp prolly couldnt keep up with the demand so its a hard thing to get water over to all the houses they needed more man power

ps i almost lost my family cabin in 04 it got foamed fire came right up to very luck only lose a boat and my bird house