2023 Fire Season

[scott43]

Note: many activities like baseball games have been postponed and/or cancelled in areas most affected by smoke.
Now the Belmont Stakes is at risk for cancelling.

Will the Belmont Stakes be canceled? Latest news, updates on 2023 Triple Crown race as NY smoke raises safety concerns | Sporting News

The Belmont Stakes could be in jeopardy due to Canadian wildfires.

www.sportingnews.com

I mean, 12 horses died at Churchill Downs .. I think the wildfires are the least of the horses worries..

 

[Tricia]

I mean, 12 horses died at Churchill Downs .. I think the wildfires are the least of the horses worries..

Lets not turn this into a horse race discussion. This is more about the smoke causing cancellations of various outside events.

 

[Tricia]

Mod note:
Posts from this thread were moved to create a Poll about potato chip flavors.

Best Potato Chip Flavor

Edit: This thread was created with posts from the 2023 Fire Season thread. A poll may be added soon. :popcorn: *imagines homeward plane falling out of the sky, overweight from all the Roots merch* More likely Ketchup potato chips....

www.skitalk.com

 

[Jilly]

Our coaches cancelled paddle practice tonight. I stayed late the office, then realized I could have gone out with the local club tonight. We're better here today.

Lots of people with "scratchy" throats and mild coughs. We'll see what the weekend brings.

 

[crgildart]

Do people exposed to these dystopian landscapes need to change their auto air filters? I'd think if you need a filter over your face, the cabin and engine filters in your vehicle are toast after a couple days in this stuff..

 

[Tricia]

This came up on local news.
Fortunately the lightning is coming in with rain so the fires are a little more managebale ....for now.

 

[Jilly]

Do people exposed to these dystopian landscapes need to change their auto air filters? I'd think if you need a filter over your face, the cabin and engine filters in your vehicle are toast after a couple days in this stuff..

Someone posted on our local's FB page a picture of the filter from their CPAP machine. 2 days and it needed to be change. But it is the internet...

 

[pais alto]

More about “get used to it.”
‘The fire equivalent of an ice age’: Humanity enters a new era of fire

I’ll be interested to see if ‘Pyrocene’ catches on as a name for this era.

 

[Jilly]

Well Ontario is getting smoke from fires in Northern Quebec today. Not as bad as last week, but not something that I want to hang out the laundry in. Winds from the NE are not helping.

 

[pais alto]

Holy shit.
“Lahaina (Maui) has been devastated,”

 

[crgildart]

Holy shit.
“Lahaina (Maui) has been devastated,”

Didn't have that on my 2023 bingo card. How awful. Fire's what I fear most when it comes to disasters to be caught in..

 

[pais alto]

Yeah, it’s hard work…and it takes a toll.
A day fighting wildfires can require as much endurance as riding the Tour de France

…with the immense physical demands of the job, crew members often experience a decay in metabolic and cardiovascular health and an increase in cholesterol, blood lipids and body fat. It is unclear why such a hardworking job often makes firefighters less healthy, requiring an off-season reset to recover, retrain and rebuild.

The season causes damage. This unfolds counter to the commonly accepted benefits of regular exercise. Pollutant and smoke exposure, lapses in nutrition, sleep disorders and chronic stress during the season seems to gradually poke holes in the Hotshot armor.

 

[Andy Mink]

Yeah, it’s hard work…and it takes a toll.
A day fighting wildfires can require as much endurance as riding the Tour de France

Not to mention smoke inhalation

 

[pais alto]

Not to mention smoke inhalation

And dirt/dust from digging line. I used to do some the grossest, thick, black farmer blows and loogie hocks back in the day

 

[pais alto]

News reports at least 36 dead on Maui.

36. That’s so f’n horrible.

 

[coskigirl]

Watching the Maui fires from the perspective of having gone through unthinkable fires here in Colorado with the Marshall Fire has been different than watching previous wildfires that swept through towns. We expect wildfires in our mountains but the way the Marshall Fire swept through my community was shocking in a similar way as I imagine it was in Maui. We were lucky that we had far less loss of life partially because it was over the holidays so many people were not home (although that meant that many pets perished.) We also had potentially thousands of miles to run to if needed to escape the fire where on an island the escape routes are far more difficult. I've texted with a friend that lives in Oahu and it's just so hard to imagine. I've seen local talk about how we as a community that has been through something similar can support the Maui victims. I'm not sure what that will be yet but I'm happy to see the discussion happening.

 

[crgildart]

I'd never imagined anyplace that close to the coast with nice ocean breezes could ever get so dry that something like this could happen. Has anything even close to this every happened there in anyone's memory?

 

[Andy Mink]

My SiL's mother is there. We finally heard from her. Their group is sleeping in rental vans with no access to their belongings, including meds, in the condo. They cannot get off the island either. Scary stuff.

One of the main differences I was thinking about compared to fires on the mainland is the size of the fire crew on the island is the size you have to work with. Getting additional manpower and gear isn't as easy as driving there.

 

[James]

They used to burn thousands of acres of sugar cane fields on Maui before 2017, no? Did that never get out of control?

 

[pais alto]

One of the main differences I was thinking about compared to fires on the mainland is the size of the fire crew on the island is the size you have to work with. Getting additional manpower and gear isn't as easy as driving there.

Absolutely. Another factor is that there aren’t numerous highly organized, dedicated wildfire suppression crews like hotshot crews, smokejumpers, large wildfire engines (like Forest Service, BLM, CalFire, etc), or air tankers and retardant bases. But most important, when 60 mph winds blow on dry vegetation, none of that stuff I mentioned will be effective in preventing the spread, they can only be used on evacuation and point protection. Aircraft would be grounded.

I don’t think that Hawaii gets this combination of dry vegetation and 60 mph winds very often. For sure sugar cane fields wouldn’t have been lit during those sort of conditions. Hawaii has a wildfire history but not catastrophic as this, largely because of unusual conditions. I think that’s the case anyway.

Another thing I thought of is when I’ve been to west Maui, the (few) highways have been routinely jammed in the morning and evening. I would think that has been a factor, as well as the rural nature of many areas and roads.