wild fires...

[pilvikki]

granddaughter and b/f was just told to hit the road and head north as the city of fort MacMurray is threatened by a huge fire. since it's sitting by the infamous tar sands, I don't see this going well...

meanwhile, their temperatures are around 30! that'll not help!

[pilvikki]

[pilvikki]

just read that granddaughter and their pets and friends are safe. friend's parents are flying them south to Calgary to stay with them.

someone just mentioned the pinebeetle devastated forests left standing like hundreds of aches of firewood was just asking for a spark - and they did not see this coming?

shocking. not.

[Icey]

Oh dear! That's scary!

[pilvikki]

in another life I was at work on a Saturday and phil and I could smell. weird, so we went outside to see what was going on. we could see nothing, but the smoke was choking us.

it was a fire in Quebec, 200 or so miles away from us, but the wind carried it over. and the sun! the sun was a carmine red disc in the sky.

[Icey]

I once heard someone in Australia make a similar comment about a bush fire over there - miles from where she was, but she still got wind of it.

I bet the sky looked quite surreal didn't it?

[pilvikki]

yes indeed, the sky was a strange haze as if cloudy, but with the sun sitting there staring at you. I didn't have my cell phone, and neither did phil, so we just sat there having a smoke and phil sez "what if we are the last people in the city?"

and then we looked at each other and both said "hope not!"



phil was ok, just not of the jolly kind of Irishman.

[pilvikki]

someone driving through a different forest fire. why the hell would you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or7tWjWI0ZA

[tomsk]

for the rush I suppose...crazy..

[pilvikki]

not something i'd care to try...

[Icey]

Nor me. It's ridiculously risky. What happens if smoke blinds you to the curve of the road? What happens if a burning tree falls onto your car or blocks your way? There may be no way back by that time, but whether for bravado or just because people'll try to escape things like that, you can see from the video how these forest fires can get out of hand.