2026 Wildfire Season

[lenaitch]

Fun fact about wood pellets from the 807 area code, feeding into the "how change is managed well or not" narrative.

Around 2015, Ontario converted a power generation plant in Thunder Bay from coal to wood pellets.

And where did they have to get the wood pellets? Norway.

That was before it was shut down, then demolished

More here:

Thunder Bay Generating Station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I know very little about the industry but I have heard that the quality/type of wood pellet used for fuel is very plant or burner specific. There was a pellet plant just outside of Wawa that shipped to, if I recall correctly, the UK (if not, certainly overseas).

Ironically the hydro dam at Kakabecca Falls - just outside of Thunder Bay - was built over a century ago for powering the pulp mill. So there are some successes as well.

Many of the older hydro-electric stations in northern Ontario were originally privately built and owned and located either adjacent or nearby a pulp mill. It was not all that long ago a couple of them were still 25Hz because that's what the mill equipment was designed for and they felt it wasn't economical to change it all out. The generating stations north of SSM were built primarily to power Algoma Steel.

 

[lenaitch]

It's not so bad if you have reliable weather and it's not bitter cold.

Trying to log at -40 is very hard on the equipment...like any other gear outside. At cold but not bitter cold it can sometimes actually speed up logging as things like branches snap off easier with processors and logs slide easier with skidders....

But when you're trying to take a full years harvest off in a few months you have major challenges with:

• labour force. You're now a seasonal employer with challenges to find enough folks at key times
• weather. One warm spell can cause chaos. Especially if the roads don't freeze in
• occurred costs (paying loggers for wood delivered) vs. loss of wood quality due to age vs. time to produce product and make money. Was told years ago $1/m3 per month in cost for stored wood...no idea how true it is. If your mill consumes a million m3/year it adds up quick
• equipment costing is much higher due to short season = higher per hr rates needed to offset short working window.

Unfortunately muskeg - which is a form of wetland - often has poor growing sites and so not only are you dealing with the fun of access but you're also dealing with often poor form and poorer quality trees.

My dad worked in the mines in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Quebec in the 1930s when they were still pushing through the Ferguson Highway (Hwy 11), and told stories to construction equipment becoming stuck in the muskeg and by the next morning, completely gone, and I was just reading a similar story about a locomotive that went to ground and sank away before they could recover it.

 

[GR66]

Many fire crews are seasonal but I'm not aware that they are summer students. Too high risk, too specialized. The MNR still hires summer students for park staff and other support roles. They haven't had their Junior Ranger program for years.

One problem with full time fire crews is what to do with them in the off-season. They might have some utility to loan to jurisdictions that are seasonally opposite, but then the province is carrying salaries, benefits and pensions for the benefit of others.

Provincial Emergency Preparedness organizations like Ontario Corps should have a full-time cadre of trained personnel available to respond to a variety of emergency situations year round (fires, floods, wind storms, ice/snow storms, etc.).

As the military threats in the World increase the Provinces should wean themselves off using the military as the emergency responder of choice. What happens if the military has to deploy or even mobilize and aren't available?

 

[Cloud Cover]

There are many college and university students employed as wildfire crew in BC.

A few years back a young woman - I believe a nursing student - lost her life near Revelstoke 30 miles due east of here working on the far end of a line falling trees. It was really quite sad and the community did not take it well.