BC Wildfire information and resources

Posted on by Laila

Spent a long night talking to friends and readers from different areas of the province who are dealing with and worrying about the many wildfires all over the province and woke up this morning to see pics of my hometown of Prince George on twitter being smoked out to the point the street lights are on this morning! 😦

With the hundreds of wildfires around BC, I thought it might be helpful to post the information you may need to reference if you are travelling in different areas or simply worried about what the situation is your area.

If you follow twitter, I have posted links there as well at @lailayuile
Follow  https://twitter.com/BCGovFireInfo for updates and info on the wildfire situations

Please report all wild fire starts at 1-800-663-5555 or call *5555  on your cell.

In urban areas report grass fires and fire starts in parks to 911 or your local fire department.

You can also follow access forest fire information at this website: http://bcwildfire.ca/Situation/ 

Reports on the most notable fires, with links to Drive BC reports for smoke warnings etc here: http://bcwildfire.ca/hprScripts/WildfireNews/OneFire.asp

Air quality indexes and warnings  from forest fire smoke: http://www.bcairquality.ca/

Most of all, be safe. It only takes a small spark from equipment or a BBQ, to a careless cigarette butt toss to start a massive fire.

There is also a petition going to urge the government to bring back the Mars Bomber, which is an incredibly effective fire fighting tool as anyone who has seen it in action can attest.

Sadly, they were taken out of service last year: here is a bit of info on that http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/martin-mars-water-bomber-grounded-after-53-years-in-b-c-1.624458

A bit of a shame,considering forest fires not only create risk of loss of life and home…. but also have a huge ability to reduce merchantable timber to ashes, impacting forestry jobs for decades to come in some areas, along with impacting tourism in areas where fires burn out areas around lakes and camping areas.

Here is a link to the petition https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/christy-clark-contract-the-martin-mars-waterbombers-for-5-more-years-to-protect-bc

 

8 thoughts on “BC Wildfire information and resources”

  2. I signed the petition, but I believe there is only one of those planes left, the Hawaii Mars. B.C. is burning, and the Hawaii Mars must be put into service again. I have never experienced a more incompetent government in my life, and I’ve been around since the ‘Wacky’ Bennett days.

    I’m very concerned about our precious wildlife. People and their property will be protected, but what about the animals that can’t escape these infernos?

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    1. Not to mention the amount of marketable timber that is going up in smoke in some areas… sources say the branch also suffered cutbacks, which I certainly hope is not true.

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  3. Thanks for putting the links on your site. I note that the media hasn’t done what you are doing – maybe I just have not seen it, but it shows that you care more about the people of BC than the BC Lie-berals ever have. The mainstream media – well that is another story to tell.

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  4. The BC Government is was elected by the people of BC , part of their “duty” as elected is to protect our people , homes , livelihoods & the assets of BC. so far they are not doing that ! (Gross dereliction of that said duty). The “Martin Mars” water bombers sit idle these 2 aircraft have a 50 year unmatched & proven record of snuffing out fires in our province and abroad.
    Get the Mars up in the air doing what they do best… Putting out fires ! & saving our homes & assets.

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  5. There is an interesting angle to this, if rumour is at all true. Man works for Forest Industry Flying Tankers (Mars owners before forestry went in the tank, and consortium of MacBlo, WFP and ?), has a sour split, goes to work in Forest Ministry and ensures that Coulson (successors to FIFT) is out of a contract, and that Conair gets the work, said person now working for Conair. Sound familiar?All unsubstantiated, but I wonder what FOI might turn up. Petition went from 4 000 signatures to over 12 000 in the space of a few hours this afternoon. I suspect that it won’t make a lot of difference to Forests or Christy.

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    1. MacBlo, WFP and ? =

      sold to FIFT (a consortium of five British Columbia forest companies formed by MacMillan Bloedel Limited, British Columbia Forest Products Limited, Pacific Logging Co. Ltd., Tahsis Company, and Western Forest Industries)…..

      http://scharnbergstephan.blogspot.ca/2011/06/1945-martin-jrm-3-mars-cn-9264-buno.html
      – Stephen Alexander Scharnberg – Words and Wings June 2011

      http://www.ruudleeuw.com/pdf/martin_mars-by-septer.pdf – Dirk Septer April 2011 Plenty of images

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  6. Dan, if this is true, which seems to be the way this government does things and it wouldn’t surprise me, is appalling. These planes have a proven track record. If this is politics, then every politician regardless of party, should hang their heads in shame. How dare they play with people’s lives, homes, our resources etc. all because someone doesn’t belong to “their party” and help pay the “party bills”. Politics at is dirtiest and BC has so gone done the drain. The liberals are topping the worst government (along with the Cons in Ottawa) this province has had. Wasn’t a socred person either, but my god, they didn’t sell everything out to the highest bidder and the hell with everyone, everything else.
    Disgusted, again.
    Bring back the Mars.

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