GK .Dundas
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Should read Chemtrails and did when I posted
2026 Wildfire Season
- Thread starter daftandbarmy
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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.It's like a sash of 940 fires ...
View attachment 101352
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System / Système canadien d'information sur les feux de végétation
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System / Système canadien d'information sur les feux de végétationcwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca
Red (and the now BH and UC fires) are usually only actioned due to values at risk - could be people, communities, wildlife values etc.
Haggis
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The formulation of which lessens the presence of dihydrogen monoxide in the air, allowing the fires to spread.
GK .Dundas
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Absolutely!
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If I recall the Ontario MNR policy, they will 'monitor' only any fire north of 51* unless a community is threatened. There is virtually no timber value and much of the area is far too remote.
HavokFour
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I guess this calls for a reasonable and rational response.
Sanctions and tariffs.
www.ctvnews.ca
Sanctions and tariffs.
Smoke from U.S. wildfires affecting air quality in B.C.
Wildfires south of the border are responsible for “much” of the smoke that has prompted an air quality warning in one region of B.C., according to officials.
www.ctvnews.ca
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Also shared via POTUS47's Truth Social: Montana senator disses Canada "block(ing) U.S. firefighting companies from attacking fires in Canada."
P.S. - Re: earning "commercial rates," all I could find in the public domain this quickly is that (in Ontario, anyway) "there are costs associated with deploying provincial resources (to California), but ... there a number of agreements that will assist with cost recovery for this work." Happy to hear from those way closer to the sharp/hot end about how such cost recovery works.
P.P.S. - That would be this Tim Sheehy ...
montanafreepress.org
www.sej.org
P.S. - Re: earning "commercial rates," all I could find in the public domain this quickly is that (in Ontario, anyway) "there are costs associated with deploying provincial resources (to California), but ... there a number of agreements that will assist with cost recovery for this work." Happy to hear from those way closer to the sharp/hot end about how such cost recovery works.
P.P.S. - That would be this Tim Sheehy ...
A U.S. Senator pushed to cut firefighting aircraft inspections the same month his former company failed one
In the Senate, Tim Sheehy has sought to cut regulations and expand the government’s use of private aircraft on wildfires, while still owning stock in Bridger Aerospace.
montanafreepress.org
Senator Pushed to Cut Fire Aircraft Inspections His Firm Flunked
“U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy previously ran an aerial firefighting company. After joining Congress, he proposed ending Forest Service inspections of those aircraft. The same month a draft of his plan to end Forest Service inspections leaked, an aircraft at his former company failed an inspection...
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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 they can or can not fill. Goal is no surprises and easy accounting when a resource request for assistance goes out.
So an Incident Commander 1 you pay more than for a IC3. A Type 1 Crew is more expensive than a Type 2 Extended action crew.
There are up to 5 levels of certification - depending on role and province (some are still on 4) - with 5 being the lowest and 1 being top. In Australia it's reversed so a Type3 IC is top dog...but they're different down under.
The pre-set cost is important as the importing province would be billed for the day (usually a day rate) from the exporting province. But the export province pays the hours of work for it's staff/OT etc. as per their agency guidelines. So if a crew making $20/hr x 20 people x 8 hour day costs $3200 in labour but the exporting agency gets paid $6000...you make money exporting. But if the crew is working 14 hours a day with a pile of OT involved...you might lose money. Lots of variation in pay rates around the province and how it works on deployments.
Within Canada there are generally few surprises but as you look internationally there are differences for each province as to which countries they have signed agreements with and also which US States. So BC and AB are part of the NW Compact (AK, WA, OR, MT, ID, WY, CO) but Ontario is part of the Great Lakes Compact (MN, WI, MI etc.) and the Maritimes would be part of the New England Compact (MA, NY, VT, RI, PA etc.). I might have the new england name wrong but that's the pool they pull from.
I don't know all the ins and out of each province but hopefully this helps clear some of it up.
daftandbarmy
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Also shared via POTUS47's Truth Social: Montana senator disses Canada "block(ing) U.S. firefighting companies from attacking fires in Canada."
View attachment 101365
P.S. - Re: earning "commercial rates," all I could find in the public domain this quickly is that (in Ontario, anyway) "there are costs associated with deploying provincial resources (to California), but ... there a number of agreements that will assist with cost recovery for this work." Happy to hear from those way closer to the sharp/hot end about how such cost recovery works.
P.P.S. - That would be this Tim Sheehy ...
A U.S. Senator pushed to cut firefighting aircraft inspections the same month his former company failed one
In the Senate, Tim Sheehy has sought to cut regulations and expand the government’s use of private aircraft on wildfires, while still owning stock in Bridger Aerospace.Senator Pushed to Cut Fire Aircraft Inspections His Firm Flunked
“U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy previously ran an aerial firefighting company. After joining Congress, he proposed ending Forest Service inspections of those aircraft. The same month a draft of his plan to end Forest Service inspections leaked, an aircraft at his former company failed an inspection...
The whole method of contracting air tanker assets for wildfire management is insanely complicated and shot through with crazy politics and questionable business practices.
There is no shortage of aircraft, as I understand it, it's just who gets access to the work.
But yeah, let's buy a bunch of government water bombers because it makes us feel good about a very politically charged, emotional subject...
e.g.,
Sask. government paid $100M too much for new firefighting planes, B.C.-based manufacturer says
Coulson Aircrane asks court to overturn $187M contract, alleging tendering process was flawed, biased
Coulson Aircrane says the Saskatchewan government has agreed to pay more than twice what it should have for four firefighting aircraft — a decision the B.C.-based company says will cost Saskatchewan taxpayers an extra $100 million.
Coulson, one of the leading companies in the world for retrofitting planes for firefighting, made the claim last month in an application to the Court of King's Bench.
"We are concerned the government of Saskatchewan has awarded a very large (over $187,000,000) contract for forest fire airplanes, without affording any reasonable opportunity to Coulson or any other competitor to bid on the contract," says an affidavit filed by company president Britt Coulson.
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And lets be very clear…
Wildfires on the scale of Northern Ontario are only put out by one thing: extended rain or snow.
You can throw every water bomber and fire crew in the world at a fire that size and it laughs at our puny human efforts. At best, you might be able to shape it’s direction somewhat.
This hard for intelligent people to understand (much less US politicians).
Wildfires on the scale of Northern Ontario are only put out by one thing: extended rain or snow.
You can throw every water bomber and fire crew in the world at a fire that size and it laughs at our puny human efforts. At best, you might be able to shape it’s direction somewhat.
This hard for intelligent people to understand (much less US politicians).
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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.
If you want a scooper type aircraft there were no new airframes in construction at time of the Sask. tender....CL515 was only proposed. So you're trying to buy up existing airframes (CL-415) to offer them up and not many are selling.
Or you go the route of Conair who have a history of many years converting the Dash8 Q-400 into water bombers but hold the rights. They have these in service now in multiple provinces + CIFFC fleet (new for 2026) and in France.
There are some additional Bae-146/Rj-85 tanker conversions out there....Neptune Avaition in Montana comes to mind....but that's an early 80's airframe and part concerns come up.
So I have no idea what the actual tender requirements were but if there was only one option that met their needs....and you don't make it....it's tough to argue.
It would be more akin to the ongoing discussions on this forum on the F-35 and Grippen being equals.
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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 sensors (in case of an explosion) due to the energy released.
As @SeaKingTacco indicated you need the weather to cooperate. What good is a guy with a bucket of water going to do if you have 50-60m tall flames coming at you...except get in trouble.
A quick google search did not find much other than some opinion pieces/reddit on cross checking energy release of nuclear bombs vs. fires. For some reason a lot of this information appears to be unpublished
. This was the best of the group...and seeing a major fire cook off is impressive but something I could skip again moving forward. 
Wildfires can release more energy than an atomic bomb. No wonder they look apocalyptic
Uncontrolled wildfires can be powerful enough to generate their own weather.
www.latimes.com
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Yup -- U.S. Nuclear Defence Agency worked with MNR and Forestry Canada in 1989 on a biggish burn to sorta-kinda simulate, I don't know, other big burns?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 sensors (in case of an explosion) due to the energy released.
As @SeaKingTacco indicated you need the weather to cooperate. What good is a guy with a bucket of water going to do if you have 50-60m tall flames coming at you...except get in trouble.
A quick google search did not find much other than some opinion pieces/reddit on cross checking energy release of nuclear bombs vs. fires. For some reason a lot of this information appears to be unpublished
Wildfires can release more energy than an atomic bomb. No wonder they look apocalyptic
Uncontrolled wildfires can be powerful enough to generate their own weather.
Canadian Mass Fire Experiment, 1989.
Working with Forestry Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Defense Nuclear Agency carried out an extensively instrumented experiment of a p
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Basically, nowhere near where 99% of the population lives; therefore, in typical Canadian fashion, minimal resources are allocated to combating the issue.It's like a sash of 940 fires ...
View attachment 101352
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System / Système canadien d'information sur les feux de végétation
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System / Système canadien d'information sur les feux de végétation
Waterbomber fleet is basically the same size it's always been but planes are all significantly older, require significantly more maintenance and downtime, and no new production has been happening.
It's a sovereignty issue tbh, we can't exert control over our own territory; therefore, the question becomes, does it actually belong to us?
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Bang on +95% of the time, but this year, the fires are also affecting (in Ontario, anyway) 1) more small towns than usual (compared to usually being way further north affecting remote First Nations - and their evacuations mostly due to smoke has been an annual event for some time), and 2) resorts and privately owned camps/cottages way more than other years. Hence more people being up in arms in general re: "why aren't they putting out all those fires faster?!?!?!?
daftandbarmy
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As long as the trains don't get blamed this time
B.C. Supreme Court certifies class action lawsuit that Lytton wildfire was caused by train | Globalnews.ca
The proposed representative plaintiffs in the suit both lost property in the fire and said they suffered mental trauma from what happened.
globalnews.ca
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This wasn't quite the map I was thinking of but this paper 100% supports your comment:
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.
Note that it's a 2024 paper and doesn't include recent years burning so some areas the landscape has changed noticabily
