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In the Canadian province of Alberta, 80,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the Fort McMurray area, where a wildfire has burned 1,600 buildings and more than 10,000 hectares (about 24,700 acres). The cause of the fire is unknown, but "very high temperatures, low relative humidities and some strong winds" are said to favor its spread.
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80,000 Evacuated Ahead of Alberta Fire
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Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:17PM
How common are property and life threatening forest fires in Canada? or other natural disasters like floods or earthquakes?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:53PM
Well Canada is a big country with lots of forest. However, the north is sparsely populated.
I think the West cost may get some earth-quakes (though don't recall one). Southern Manitoba is a flood-plain (they built a berm around Regina).
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:55PM
Oops, Winnipeg is the capital of Manitoba, Regina is in Saskatchewan, IIRC.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:09PM
Yes, WInnipeg is in Manitoba, Regina in Saskatchewan.
And they build a berm to protect farmlands near Winnipeg during a flood maybe a decade or two ago. And Winnipeg has a permanent dike around it.
I don't know what they have done in Regina.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:16PM
Not particularly common. Most recent was probably the slave lake forest fire in 2011, which destroyed most of the town. However, that was a much smaller place than Fort McMurray. This one will be up among the most destructive fires ever to hit the country.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:23PM
Floods are typically a lot more common during thawing season, pretty much all throughout the country. Scary thing is that it's about 30 degrees celsius over there right now, there was not that much snow so the soil is relatively dry. I wonder if there are any oil operations close by that are at risk... The Canadian Red Cross collects funds and those are matched by the Canadian government $ for $ for those interested in helping out!
https://donate.redcross.ca/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1951&ea.campaign.id=50610&_ga=1.240116611.1828677915.1462472538 [redcross.ca]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fort-mcmurray-federal-response-red-cross-1.3567828 [www.cbc.ca]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Thursday May 05 2016, @07:03PM
Not so much for the East coast. We get quakes pretty often, but they're really small. Large enough you could mistake them for a large truck driving by your house, but small enough that you wouldn't think about it until the news was like, "So yeah how about that quake last week.", then you're like, "Wut?", I can't stress how small they are, last one I remember actually noticing was over 25 years ago, but we do get quite a few of them. http://earthquaketrack.com/r/nova-scotia-canada/recent [earthquaketrack.com]
Flooding also isn't much of an issue here, there's some in New Brunswick more toward Quebec, but an advantage to living near the coast for the rest of us is the water actually has some where to go.
Hurricanes have become more of a problem in the last 10-15 years, but it's the snow storms that are getting really out of control. This winter was pretty good, but last year I had a snowbank at the end of the season that I could effortlessly walk up on to the roof of my house from the drive way. Pretty much like clockwork last year every Wednesday we'd get another two to three feet from pretty much the start of March to the middle-end of May. This year there was almost nothing though, it's going to be a bad year for farmers.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by goodie on Friday May 06 2016, @05:04AM
True for hurricanes... For the East coast I was thinking of high tides that wreak havoc in some areas and have been increasingly big over the past few years from what I understand. There are a lot of properties built right around lakes and rivers in Quebec and those tend to get flodded every spring as well.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday May 05 2016, @08:56PM
Perhaps those sand oil fields are at risk of actually burning for a very long time because there's fuel to supply it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @12:30AM
Before giving money to one of those organizations, you might want to find out what their executive officers are paid.
The amount of your donation that gets skimmed off [google.com] before any goes to people in need
is pretty shocking. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday May 06 2016, @06:31AM
The last few years have seen quite heavy fire seasons through out the west though this is really early, it's still early spring up there with the dry grass from last year and no leaving out on the trees yet. Northern BC has also had a half dozen communities on evacuation watch or evacuated and we can't even send help to Alberta due to needing it here.
Couple of years back Calgary got hit with a big flood again and before that Slave lake (smallish town) half burned.
Luckily the population is so sparse that the fires usually don't come close to populated areas.
As for earthquakes, the west coast is due for a 9+, which will really be a disaster.