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BCWS has their investigators whom I am sure are talking to the RCMP. Arson is a criminal offense so interesting to see the CBC article re: looking for leads. But either way I am 100% certain there is a group of folks working behind the scenes that won't be in the media much looking into...

Fireweed is probably the top caterer on fires in Canada. They are very very good but are also run by a couple of ex BCWS crew members. Situation is not the same all over and some frankly I'd prefer to eat MRE's. But overall food is a major consideration in both quality and quantity as...

So National Preparedness Level hit level 5 August 5th for the first time... https://ciffc.net/situation/2026-08-06 US has been at that level for a while. Significant numbers of international resources (Mexico and fire crews, some overhead + Australia/New Zealand Overhead) in both ON and BC...

Never an issue on the fireline. When you're sweating beside the person beside you trying to achieve the same goals it's mutual respect. Laughs and jokes between differences sure...but it's a mark of professional pride to be chosen to represent your agency/province/country when on export and...

Sigh...flight delayed 24 hours. In other news international resources are starting to flow more: https://citynews.com.au/2026/act-crews-join-us-wildfire-response/ Australia and NZ sending 70 staff to the NW states. SOPFEU calls on American, French firefighters for help fighting wildfires...

https://globalnews.ca/news/10698488/devyn-gale-bc-firefighter-death-report/ Unfortunately she was just one of 6 firefighters killed that season in BC + 1 in the NWT + 1 Pilot in AB. 2023 was a crappy year. 2024 wasn't much better with one fire fighter from AB and another un the NWT 2025 I...

Community - including those communities who don't think of wildfire risk a lot such as Toronto, Calgary etc. Get serious about development permits and landscaping. Conifers make for poor landscape choices due to the way they can shower embers. Tree free areas immediately around trees...

And the mozzies... and the horse flies... and the sawyer beetles if there's burns/dead wood around. Before you're walking shin deep in loon s#$@ muck, wet and grumpy... Oh how I love muskeg walks. At least normally the swamp doesn't ripple from floating over water...that gets exciting fast.

Sigh...that doesn't surprise me. Despite pellet plants in BC and Alberta. 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.

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...

That has to be for the wood pellet market in Europe? Not sure what else they would ship wood chips out as...but also frustrates me as a plant to create a dried, dense wood pellet is an possible employer here in Canada. There are some but not many overall. Mechanical compression would...

Professional input on the forest management side of things here: The pulp markets that dominated much of the 1900's are gone. Actual usage is down and you're fighting against south American plantations that have three huge advantages: 1) tree rotation cycles of 7-10 years instead of 70-100...

This wasn't quite the map I was thinking of but this paper 100% supports your comment: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221242092300701X And if you don't want to geek out on all the science methodology the maps within the paper are pretty informative from a quick glance...

If you have a large scale crown fire it's really tough to understand how much energy is being released. Let alone heat and other aspects. And then multiply that by kilometers or tens of kilometers wide front. It is my understanding that NORAD uses forest fires to help calibrate nuclear bomb...

Coulson I should note has very limited control on their products. To their credit they have patented a version of the USAF MAFF's for their C-130 conversion aircraft...but getting more C-130's is an issue. Nobody in Canada is using 737's as airtankers...only in the US and NSW Australia...

Cost recovery is mostly done via CIFFC and pre-signed contracts. As I understand it each province or international agency will "price" resources based upon type and qualification. The contracts involve both a review of each others qualification process/certification standards and what roles...

If you look at the purple - out of control/monitored fires - it also highlights how many fires are in areas where there are little to no values to protect. Red (and the now BH and UC fires) are usually only actioned due to values at risk - could be people, communities, wildlife values etc.

That's not bad for the amount of lightning we've had here in Alberta. Assuming the same frontal passages came through. It's when you're hitting those numbers for a district or region things get more active. I'd just call that busy Initial Attack day... But then you get a fire...

Might like this one too... https://ciffc.net/ Still need to the other sites to see more specifics for each area