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greenstormWelp.
The last couple evenings we've had the winds blow up, super gusty with occasional 60-90km/h, and a lot of lightning. I think there have been something like 40 new fire starts in the district in the last 48 hours that are known, and our district is really large so several won't be known for awhile: there is enough ambient smoke that new smoke plumes won't be seen easily. The district to the east of us had probably another 30 or so starts in that timeframe, and the majority of the towns within 100km of me each have "their fire".
https://wildfiresituation.nrs.gov.bc.ca/map if you're curious, I'm in the Prince George fire center southwest-ish corner, but remember that the size of the icons doesn't change so the fact that they cover the whole province when you're zoomed way out doesn't mean we're all on fire. The gut-read on that map is much more accurate to the on-ground situation if you zoom way in.
Anyhow, the air at work is suddenly electric. I've felt this before here during big fire seasons. Because fires are a huge personnel draw but only sometimes, the provincial government has a program set up where people from within it can go help with fires, everything from warehouse and logistics to actual ground crew, when they're needed. The firefolks borrow our trucks (lots of them are from mexico, australia, etc) and priorities get revamped even more on the fly than normal. The office mostly empties out and is left with a skeleton crew of people rotating through their off-deployment times and juggling a situation that changes minute-to-minute.
My sampling program is supposed to go in order down a random list of 100 locations throughout the district. When the summer students come back from running trucks down to the fire center, I'll have them comparing the map of 100 potential locations to the map of fires: I'd been planning to do the first 8 on the list but I'll be lucky to find 8 that aren't either on fire or with access blocked by fire by this point.
If an evacuation alert (which is basically: you may be evacuated at any moment) comes down, we'll have to stay within the alert area since once it's transformed to an actual evacuation there's no re-entry. And obviously I can't take all my animals into the field with me, so I wouldn't be able to re-enter to get them.
Exciting times, and my summer has definitely gone from the next month of scheduled work to very on-the-fly. I think I like this better, once I settle into it? But here we are.
Tonight is supposed to be another big wind-and-lightning evening, and then I think we get a break for a couple days.
Likely two more months before any fires will fully extinguish.
Jury is currently out on whether this is better than somewhere with hurricanes or tornadoes? But all my walks outside with the dogs, sitting in the back field in my baby orchard, watching my tomatoes and corn grow: I still love it here. I'd still rather be here than anywhere else.
Which is lucky, because I think my planned visits down south this summer are coming off the books pretty quickly, to be replaced (hopefully not) with an unplanned evac in a truck full of animals.
The last couple evenings we've had the winds blow up, super gusty with occasional 60-90km/h, and a lot of lightning. I think there have been something like 40 new fire starts in the district in the last 48 hours that are known, and our district is really large so several won't be known for awhile: there is enough ambient smoke that new smoke plumes won't be seen easily. The district to the east of us had probably another 30 or so starts in that timeframe, and the majority of the towns within 100km of me each have "their fire".
https://wildfiresituation.nrs.gov.bc.ca/map if you're curious, I'm in the Prince George fire center southwest-ish corner, but remember that the size of the icons doesn't change so the fact that they cover the whole province when you're zoomed way out doesn't mean we're all on fire. The gut-read on that map is much more accurate to the on-ground situation if you zoom way in.
Anyhow, the air at work is suddenly electric. I've felt this before here during big fire seasons. Because fires are a huge personnel draw but only sometimes, the provincial government has a program set up where people from within it can go help with fires, everything from warehouse and logistics to actual ground crew, when they're needed. The firefolks borrow our trucks (lots of them are from mexico, australia, etc) and priorities get revamped even more on the fly than normal. The office mostly empties out and is left with a skeleton crew of people rotating through their off-deployment times and juggling a situation that changes minute-to-minute.
My sampling program is supposed to go in order down a random list of 100 locations throughout the district. When the summer students come back from running trucks down to the fire center, I'll have them comparing the map of 100 potential locations to the map of fires: I'd been planning to do the first 8 on the list but I'll be lucky to find 8 that aren't either on fire or with access blocked by fire by this point.
If an evacuation alert (which is basically: you may be evacuated at any moment) comes down, we'll have to stay within the alert area since once it's transformed to an actual evacuation there's no re-entry. And obviously I can't take all my animals into the field with me, so I wouldn't be able to re-enter to get them.
Exciting times, and my summer has definitely gone from the next month of scheduled work to very on-the-fly. I think I like this better, once I settle into it? But here we are.
Tonight is supposed to be another big wind-and-lightning evening, and then I think we get a break for a couple days.
Likely two more months before any fires will fully extinguish.
Jury is currently out on whether this is better than somewhere with hurricanes or tornadoes? But all my walks outside with the dogs, sitting in the back field in my baby orchard, watching my tomatoes and corn grow: I still love it here. I'd still rather be here than anywhere else.
Which is lucky, because I think my planned visits down south this summer are coming off the books pretty quickly, to be replaced (hopefully not) with an unplanned evac in a truck full of animals.
