Evacuation FUN!

[unclevlad]

5 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

Does anyone else here find it pathetic that our species has yet to devise an all-encompassing rapid-response fire suppression technology capable of dousing these wildfires in an extremely short timeframe? As residents of this biosphere, we are keenly aware of ecological disasters (natural as well as anthropogenic) and yet we seem to pour more effort into methods of murder than ways of safeguarding ourselves from the attendant hazards of the only habitable region in this universe.

 

No.  This isn't like a fire in a fireplace.  By the time such a fire is generally even detected, it's burning *acres* of forest.  The scale is simply too large.  If it's a square area?  One acre is 660 feet by 66 feet...exactly.  So 10 acres, which in dry conditions can become involved from the initial trigger in pretty short order, represents 660 feet by 660 feet.  That's a half mile long perimeter, altho it's not gonna move equally quickly in all directions...the wind's a big factor.  

 

Not only do you have to suppress the fire along the perimeter, too...but how are you going to keep it suppressed, if the fire is still near it?

 

How are you going to deliver any such solution into rugged terrain?  Helicopters and aircraft have limited capacities.

 

The natural scales of many things are mind-boggling.  The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is about 400 parts per million.  A cubic meter of sea level air has a mass of about 1.2 kg per cubic meter.  1.2 kg == 1200 grams == 1.2 million milligrams.  So a cubic meter of air has about 500 milligrams of CO2.

Now scale this up....1 km x 1m x 1m.  500 grams.  1 km x 1 km x 1 m.  500 kilograms.  10 km x 10 km x 10 meters...500 metric tonnes.  That's a VERY thin slice of the atmosphere, over a small area.  Nebraska's a middling large state.  Its area?  200,000 square kilometers, 2000x as much.  Now thicken the atmospheric layer to 500 meters...that won't change the atmospheric density that much.  So, over the state of Nebraska...not the whole US, just Nebraska...there's about 5,000,000 TONNES of CO2.

 

That starts giving you the scope of the problem of removing the existing carbon from the atmosphere.  Your fire suppression issue is similar.  If nothing else, the sheer amount of HEAT!!! being released is very hard to fathom.  It's huge. 

 

 

[Lawnmower Boy]

On 8/21/2023 at 11:26 AM, Ragitsu said:

Does anyone else here find it pathetic that our species has yet to devise an all-encompassing rapid-response fire suppression technology capable of dousing these wildfires in an extremely short timeframe? As residents of this biosphere, we are keenly aware of ecological disasters (natural as well as anthropogenic) and yet we seem to pour more effort into methods of murder than ways of safeguarding ourselves from the attendant hazards of the only habitable region in this universe.

I'm going to weigh in here with maximum dudgeon. What is technology but our practice? We look for a miracle technology, apart from ourselves, a thing, a black box that will do what we need. The Wright brothers fly a few yards in a box, and boom, we're off to a Club Med on the other side of the world in a magic aeroplane. But in reality that plane flies from a runway that is a miracle of civil engineering, from an airport that is a social construct on part with an instant city, burning fuel from refineries that all but build custom molecules. 

 

And so it is with fires. We do have an "all-encompassing rapid-response fire suppression technology." It's society, in its firefighting mode If the fires are approaching Yellowknife and they abate for a day, the city works mananger of the city and their crew, and all the support elements brought in to help them, build a firewall and water barrier right across the west end of the city; if the fires come down the sidehill too fast to stop, the Kelowna Fire Department gets in there and attacks and evacuates while the international airport is closed so that fleets of water bombers can rain Okanagan Lake down on the advancing fires. Those who lose homes get evacuated to shelters, where they receive hotel vouchers. The good people at the Alpine Motel in Keremeos, BC (to name a little old roadside motel of which I have fond memories) take care of them until there is a  new home ready for them.

 

Technology only gives us miracles when we abstract if from its human context. 

[Mr. R]

On the move again.  No it isn't that bad.  I am just flying to Toronto to visit a stay with Family.  I was planning to visit at Christmas....  Looks like Christmas is in August!

[Mr. R]

So I have been told buy my Principal that I need to be back in YK by next Monday as we are starting classes that week.  (For those who don't know, my occupation is teacher High School).  Word is that the fire is being held and people are being asked to come back starting Sept 8.  So I will comment after I get back to YK and further update you people one the apparent situation!

[Hugh Neilson]

The smoke has been pretty strong in Edmonton the past couple of days.  I can even smell it indoors.

[Mr. R]

Well it has been two weeks.  School is back in session and we are hoping to help to a return to normalcy.  Smoke varies from day to day.  Some days it is very minor, and then we get like today, where it is almost like a fog (I literally can't see to the end of my street).  For once I am cheering the oncoming winter and hope the snow will totally dampen the remaining fires.  To quote the series "Winter is coming!"

[Hugh Neilson]

Not quite as thick here in Edmonton, but a few days back it was hazy to the point of impaired visibility a block or so out.  If we actually get a bit of fog, and it was already smoky, the fog drags the smoke down and visibility gets very poor. And, of course, the air quality is an issue.