Dr. Sarah Goslee, PhD

From a Canadian firefighter who knows what’s going on: #canada #wildfire #smoke (Worth the read) “I know you may know, but people need to know and understand that most Canadian wildfire management agencies have fire “zonation” policies similar to Alaska. This means in large areas of their jurisdictions, especially in the northern part of the country, wildfires are left to run there natural course w little or no direct action or suppression. We’ll protect values at risk, ie. infrastructure, communities, critical habitat or culturally significant features on the landscape, we’ll map them and maybe try to burn them to natural barrier, fight one flank and let the rest roll (limited action) but we are not putting them out. On many of the fires we don’t even try. A number of these fires are huge boreal gobblers (I am currently assigned to a 250,000 ha fire, well over 600,000 acres and you could fit the org. chart on one side of a beer can). The only thing that is going to put out this fire out and many across the country is winter, 5 months from now. It’s going to be a long, smoky summer for everyone. You have a wide reach, it would be great if you can help people understand these dynamics in the Canadian wildfire scene when they’re bitching about the smoke. Cheers 🍻 and thanks.” Pretty decent picture of what’s going on. Thanks for the insight. In the industry we call this letting a fire “Do its thing”. It’s especially common in these vast boreal forests. Siberia does the same thing. Identify hazards and values at risk, mitigate, let it go. Cheers.