Logging, homesteading and life on the Prairies, through the eyes of a Black photographer
Billy Beal — a Black sawmill worker who immigrated at the turn of the 20th...
A sudden shift in the wind at a critical time of day was all it took to send a wildfire out of control through Fort McMurray, forcing more than 80,000 people out of their homes in what has become the biggest natural disaster in Canadian history.
Earlier this week, Darby Allen, the regional fire chief for the area, minced no words when he was asked what might happen now that more than 1,600 homes have been destroyed.
''This is a really dirty fire,'' he said. ''There are certainly areas within the city which have not been burned, but this fire will look for them and it will take them.''
The media line now is that fire experts saw this coming five years ago when one of the Flattop Complex fires tore through the Alberta town of Slave Lake in 2011, forcing everyone to leave on a moment's notice. A report released shortly after predicted that something similar could happen again, and its authors made 21 recommendations to prepare for the possibility.
But fire scientists and fire managers actually saw this coming back in 2009 when 70 of them gathered in Victoria to address the issue of climate change and what impact it was going to have on the forest fire situation in Canada. Each one of them was already well aware that fires were burning bigger, hotter, faster, and in more unpredictable ways than ever before.
''We're exceeding thresholds all the time,'' said Mike Flannigan, who was at the time a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service. ''We'd better start acting soon.''
''We let 150 wildfires burn each year and we need to be more transparent about that,'' said Judi Beck, Manager of Fire Management for BC Wildfire Management Branch. ''The public needs to know what we can and can't do.''
Gordon Miller, a director general with the Canadian Forest Service, summed it up succinctly, saying, ''More fires mean more communities will be at risk.''
Flannigan is now a professor and research scientist at the University of Alberta. He remembers the meeting well because the participants were so bluntly honest about what they knew, what they didn't know, and what needed to be done.
''Many of us saw a Fort McMurray-like situation coming back then and even earlier, but frankly none of us expected anything as horrific as what has happened there this week. This is a signal, one of many, and the strongest we've seen yet, that suggests that the fire situation is going to get a lot worse, and that in some cases, there will not be much we can do about it other than evacuate communities.''
Flannigan declined to say whether enough has been done to prevent or better manage what has happened in Fort McMurray. ''Things are much too raw right now,'' he said, ''and we don't have all of the information and facts yet.''
But some Fort McMurray residents are beginning to question why it happened and why it took so long to tell people to get out. ''They evacuated us so late,'' resident Crystal Mercredi told CBC's The Current. ''So late that people were stuck in traffic and people were calling the radio station, saying… 'We're bumper-to-bumper. We can't move. Come and save us…we're sitting ducks.''' Another woman couldn't believe the elementary school that her child attended was evacuated just an hour before it burned down.
It's not that no one has been listening. This year, governments started preparing for the fire season a month earlier, as the Flattop report recommended. And efforts are underway to make many communities fire smart.
But the fact is many decision-makers have been in denial or slow to move in addressing the fact that climate change is the new dragon in the forest, and that El Niño events like this year's make these dragons more volatile. The Alberta government this year reduced the fire prevention and management budget by $14.6 million.
Along with B.C. Premier Christy Clark, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall wants a national fire strategy but he refuses to accept the fact that something needs to be done to address climate change, which is the main reason why the area burned in Canada each year has doubled since the 1970s and why the number of fires is likely to double or even triple in the decades to come. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is sincere about addressing climate change, but not at the expense of ramping up oilsands and fossil fuel production, which is driving climate change.
It's skewed logic when you look at the numbers the Bank of Montreal put out on Thursday. Its economists predict that insurance claims arising from the Fort McMurray fires could be as high as $9 billion. And that's just a small part of a bigger picture that's been emerging.
Unheeded alarms, then exodus: Experts warned in 2009 that wildfire risks in Canada's boreal forests were hugely spiking. Alberta cut its firefighting budget this year. Source: RCMP Alberta.
Since 2011, boreal forest fires in Canada, the United States and Russia have destroyed more trees than all that were burned in the rainforests of the world. Canada and the U.S. now rank second and fourth among countries with the greatest amount of annual tree loss. Russia, which is home to the world's biggest boreal forest, tops the list.
The growing cost of fighting wildfires is already overwhelming the ability of governments to manage their forests. For the first time, the government of Alberta couldn't fight all of the fires it wanted to fight in 2015 even though it brought in help from Mexico and Australia at one point to save some oilsands operations. And for the first time in Canada, wildfire management costs associated with the fires of 2015 topped the $1-billion mark.
There are a number of reasons why fires are going to burn bigger, hotter, faster, and more often in the future. There are more people living and working in the boreal forest, and like it or not, people start a lot of fires — more than half that occur in Canada. And in fighting fires so religiously to protect valuable timber, oilsands, pipelines and communities, we've created an unnaturally large amount of old growth forest in the boreal, where spruce and pine are prevalent and highly combustible.
But there isn't an expert out there who doubts that climate change is the biggest reason why we're losing the battle to control wildfires.
For every one degree of warming, there needs to be 15 per cent more precipitation to keep the fine combustible fuels on the ground sufficiently moist. So if temperatures rise by about three degrees by the end of the century, which is as conservative an estimate as there is, we'll need 45 per cent more rain. Flannigan says there is nothing in the climate models that suggest we'll come close. In fact, we're likely to get less precipitation in some areas.
More heat is also going to result in more lighting, which currently accounts for 85 per cent of the area burned in Canada. Typically, lightning occurs in clusters where there can be 50 to 100 strikes in a day. But increasingly we're seeing lightning events such as the one that occurred in Alaska last year when a slow-moving storm unleashed 50,000 lightning strikes in just five days. More than five million acres of trees were destroyed in a fire season that turned out to be second worst in the state's history. No one had ever seen anything like it.
What's more, insects like the mountain pine beetle and the spruce bark beetle that kill or weaken mature spruce and pine will continue to proliferate in these warmer environments, adding fuel for combustion.
A perfect firestorm: As climate change dries out forests, humans operating there hold back burns until conditions exist for huge conflagrations like this one ravaging Fort McMurray's environs. Source: Alberta RCMP.
One way to mitigate the problem is to let more fires burn. But in Alberta where there are so many oilsands, pipelines and fracking operations, that's almost impossible to do.
Letting fires burn in more remote places is also risky because there's the potential that it will get out of control. The only way to stop a fire like that is to light another one in front of it to starve it of fuel.
This can only be done when the winds are relatively calm and when there is a break in the topography that allows fire fighters to anchor in.
The chances of oilsands bitumen catching fire are remote because it is mixed with sand and very difficult to ignite. Most of it is buried in subterranean conditions where there is very little oxygen to feed a fire. What's more worrisome is the peat that lies beneath the boreal forest. If a forest fire is sufficiently hot enough, it can burn deep into the peat and smoulder through the winter, potentially destroying seedlings and re-igniting once the snow melts in spring.
Ted Schuur has spent the better part of his career making the connection between climate change and wildfires. If more fires begin to burn through layers of moss, leaves, and other organic materials that insulate permafrost from surface heat, says the Northern Arizona University scientist, they could release vast amounts of carbon as there is twice as much carbon trapped in permafrost as in the atmosphere.
''As more and more of this carbon is released from the permafrost, temperatures are going to rise even faster,'' he says. ''Permafrost carbon may not be as visible as changes in sea ice, but you can bet that big changes are happening there and it's going to have a big impact on the future.''
Some experts are now talking about the possibility of a 3.5-million-hectare fire that will exceed anything we have seen in North America in the past 150 years.
No one knows what such a fire would look like, but the Chinchaga Firestorm of 1950 gives us an idea. It burned for 222 days and torched a stretch of forest that was 280 kilometres long.
It had been an exceptionally hot spring, just as it has been in western Canada this year, when a small wildfire ignited in northern British Columbia. Firefighters were too busy battling other fires to do anything about a little fire like this, which was remote and relatively far from human settlement.
Within a few days though, it crossed into the wildlands of Alberta where the tinder dry forest went on forever. A giant pall of smoke from the blaze led some people in the south to believe that an atomic bomb had exploded.
It was not an alien invasion, a volcanic eruption or an eclipse of the sun as others suspected. At one point though, flights in Canada and the U.S. had to be cancelled. In Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Fort Erie and many towns in New York, it was so dark at mid-day that lights in baseball fields, including those at Yankee Stadium, had to be turned on. Smoke from the fire travelled all the way to Europe. Some Danish people were so jittery when they woke up to see a blue sun rising over the horizon that they went to the bank to withdraw their life savings.
It wasn't just people who were affected. One farmer in Jamestown, New York, described how his chickens, which had fanned out for their midday foraging, suddenly realized they were being caught by darkness, so they scurried back across the cow yard in more than usual earnest, their heads moving in delayed jerks.''
Astronomer Carl Sagan was so intrigued by the Chinchaga fire that he looked into the event to see how it might fit into his concept of a ''nuclear winter.''
According to Flannigan and fire expert Cordy Tymstra, who recently wrote a book on the fire, Chinchaga changed the way we fight fires. But they also say that the time has come to rethink much of what we have learned since then because there will be many more fires, and more assets — small towns, oil fields, pipelines, mines, lodges, and endangered species — that will be in the line of fire.
"I liken Slave Lake and Fort McMurray to a bloody nose," says Flannigan. "Sometimes we need to suffer several bloody noses before we change our behaviour."
Images: Alberta RCMP
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"Kutengeneza miti, ujenzi wa mashamba na maisha katika maeneo ya mashambani, kupitia macho ya mpiga picha mweusi Billy Beale, mfanyakazi mweusi wa kiwanda cha mbao aliyehamia mwishoni mwa karne ya 20 ""Mabadiliko ya ghafla ya upepo wakati muhimu wa siku ilikuwa yote yaliyohitajika kutuma moto wa mwituni nje ya udhibiti kupitia Fort McMurray, kulazimisha watu zaidi ya 80,000 kutoka nyumba zao katika kile ambacho kimekuwa msiba mkubwa wa asili katika historia ya Canada." Darby Allen, mkuu wa idara ya moto wa eneo hilo, alisema kuwa hakuna kitu ambacho kingeweza kutokea baada ya nyumba zaidi ya 1,600 kuharibiwa. 'Hii ni moto mchafu sana,' akasema. """Hakika kuna sehemu katika mji ambazo hazikuchomwa, lakini moto huu utawatafuta na kuwatawanya." "Wanafunzi wa moto wa Alberta waliona moto wa ""Flat Top Complex"" katika mji wa Slave Lake, Alberta, mnamo 2011 na kulazimisha watu wote kuondoka." Ripoti iliyotolewa muda mfupi baadaye ilitabiri kwamba jambo kama hilo lingeweza kutokea tena, na waandishi wake walifanya mapendekezo 21 ya kujitayarisha kwa uwezekano huo. Wataalamu wa moto na wasimamizi wa moto waliona hii ikirudi nyuma mnamo 2009 wakati 70 kati yao walikusanyika huko Victoria kushughulikia suala la mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa na athari gani itakuwa na hali ya moto wa misitu nchini Canada. Kila mmoja wao alikuwa tayari anajua vizuri kwamba moto ulikuwa ukiwaka kwa kasi zaidi, kwa kasi zaidi, na kwa njia zisizoweza kutabiriwa kuliko wakati mwingine wowote. """Tunazidi mipaka wakati wote,"" alisema Mike Flannigan, ambaye wakati huo alikuwa mwanasayansi wa utafiti na Huduma ya Msitu ya Canada." "Ni bora tuanze kutenda haraka". """Tunaruhusu moto wa mwituni 150 kuchoma kila mwaka na tunahitaji kuwa wazi zaidi kuhusu hilo,"" alisema Judi Beck, Meneja wa Usimamizi wa Moto wa Idara ya Usimamizi wa Moto wa BC." "Watu wanahitaji kujua tunachoweza na kile ambacho hatuwezi kufanya". "Gordon Miller, mkurugenzi mkuu wa Huduma ya Misitu ya Canada, alisema: ""Moto zaidi unamaanisha jamii zaidi zitakuwa hatarini.""" Flannigan sasa ni profesa na mwanasayansi wa utafiti katika Chuo Kikuu cha Alberta. "Anakumbuka mkutano huo vizuri kwa sababu washiriki walikuwa wakimya sana kuhusu kile walichojua, kile wasichokijua, na kile kilichohitaji kufanywa.""" """Wengi wetu tuliona hali kama ya Fort McMurray ikija wakati huo na hata mapema, lakini kwa uwazi hakuna yeyote kati yetu aliyetarajia kitu chochote cha kutisha kama kile kilichotokea huko wiki hii." "Hii ni ishara, moja ya nyingi, na yenye nguvu zaidi ambayo tumeona hadi sasa, ambayo inaonyesha kuwa hali ya moto itaendelea kuwa mbaya zaidi, na kwamba katika hali zingine, hakutakuwa na mengi tunaweza kufanya juu yake isipokuwa kuhamisha jamii. """ Flannigan alikataa kusema kama kutosha imefanywa kuzuia au kusimamia vizuri kile kilichotokea katika Fort McMurray. 'Mambo ni mengi sana mbichi sasa hivi,' alisema, 'na hatuna habari zote na ukweli bado.' "Wakazi wa Fort McMurray wameanza kuhoji kwa nini ilitokea na kwa nini ilichukua muda mrefu kuwaambia watu ""watoke.""" 'Walituhamisha kwa kuchelewa sana,' mkaaji Crystal Mercredi aliiambia CBC's The Current. """Wakati huo watu walikuwa wamefungwa katika msongamano wa magari na watu walikuwa wakipiga simu kwenye kituo cha redio, wakisema... 'Tuko katika hali mbaya sana. Hatuwezi kuhama. Njoo utusaidie...tuko katika hali mbaya sana.' ' Mwanamke mwingine hakuamini kwamba shule ya msingi ambayo mtoto wake alihudhuria ilifutwa saa moja tu kabla ya kuungua. Si kwamba hakuna mtu amekuwa kusikiliza. Serikali za nchi hizo zimeanza kujitayarisha kwa ajili ya msimu wa moto mwezi mmoja mapema, kama ilivyopendekezwa na ripoti ya Flattop. Na jitihada zinafanywa ili kufanya jamii nyingi ziwe na moto wenye busara. "Lakini ukweli ni kwamba watunga maamuzi wengi wamekuwa wakikataa au polepole kuhama katika kushughulikia ukweli kwamba mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa ni ""Dragoni mpya katika msitu"" na kwamba matukio ya El Niño kama ya mwaka huu hufanya ""Dragoni"" hizi kuwa na kasi zaidi." Serikali ya Alberta imepunguza bajeti ya kuzuia na kudhibiti moto kwa $ 14.6 milioni. Pamoja na B.C. Waziri Mkuu wa Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, anataka mkakati wa moto wa kitaifa, lakini anakataa kukubali ukweli kwamba kitu kinahitaji kufanywa ili kukabiliana na mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa, ambayo ni sababu kuu kwa nini eneo la moto nchini Canada limepanda mara mbili kila mwaka tangu miaka ya 1970 na kwa nini idadi ya moto inaweza kuongezeka mara mbili au hata mara tatu katika miongo ijayo. Waziri Mkuu wa Alberta, Rachel Notley, amesema kuwa serikali yake inataka kukabiliana na mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa, lakini sio kwa gharama ya kuongeza uzalishaji wa mafuta na mafuta ya mafuta, ambayo ni kuendesha mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa. Hii ni kwa sababu ya idadi ya watu ambao wamepoteza maisha yao katika shughuli za benki ya Montreal, ambayo ilitangaza tarehe ya Alhamisi. Wataalamu wa uchumi wa Marekani wamedai kwamba gharama za kuokoa maisha ya watu kutokana na moto wa Fort McMurray zitakuwa bilioni 9. Na hii ni sehemu ndogo tu ya picha kubwa ambayo imekuwa ikitokea. "Wanafunzi wa shule ya sekondari nchini Kanada wamekuwa wakitoa onyo la ""moto wa mwituni"" kwa misitu ya Kanada ya kaskazini." Alberta ilipunguza bajeti yake ya kuzima moto mwaka huu. Chanzo: RCMP Alberta. Tangu mwaka 2011, moto wa misitu ya Kanada, Marekani na Urusi umeharibu miti mingi kuliko yote yaliyochomwa katika misitu ya mvua duniani. Canada na Marekani sasa ziko katika nafasi ya pili na ya nne kati ya nchi zenye kiasi kikubwa zaidi cha kupoteza miti kila mwaka. Urusi, ambayo ni makao ya msitu mkubwa zaidi ulimwenguni, ndiyo inayoongoza orodha hiyo. Gharama ya moto wa mwituni imezidi kuwa kubwa na serikali zina uwezo mkubwa wa kudhibiti misitu. Serikali ya Alberta ilishindwa kuzima moto wote uliokuwa ukikua mwaka 2015, ingawa wakati mmoja ilileta msaada kutoka Mexico na Australia ili kuokoa baadhi ya shughuli za mchanga wa mafuta. Kwa mara ya kwanza, gharama za usimamizi wa moto wa mwituni nchini Canada zimezidi dola bilioni moja. Kuna sababu kadhaa kwa nini moto utawaka kwa kasi zaidi, kwa kasi zaidi, na mara nyingi zaidi katika siku zijazo. Kuna watu wengi wanaoishi na kufanya kazi katika misitu ya boreal, na kama ni au si, watu kuanza moto mengi <unk> zaidi ya nusu ambayo hutokea katika Canada. Kwa kupigana na moto kwa bidii ili kulinda mbao zenye thamani, mchanga wa mafuta, mabomba na jamii, tumeunda kiasi kikubwa cha misitu ya zamani katika eneo la kaskazini, ambapo misonobari na misonobari ni ya kawaida na yenye moto sana. Lakini hakuna mtaalamu yeyote ambaye anashuku kwamba mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa ni sababu kuu ya kupoteza vita vya kudhibiti moto wa misitu. Kwa kila kiwango kimoja cha joto, inahitajika kuwa na mvua zaidi ya 15% ili kuweka mafuta ya moto kwenye ardhi yenye unyevu wa kutosha. """Ikiwa joto la dunia litapanda kwa digrii 3 kufikia mwisho wa karne hii, ambayo ni takwimu ya kihafidhina, tutahitaji mvua zaidi ya asilimia 45." Flannigan anasema hakuna kitu katika mifano ya hali ya hewa ambayo inapendekeza tutafika karibu. Kwa kweli, ni uwezekano wa kupata mvua kidogo katika maeneo fulani. "Kama joto la joto linaongezeka, basi kuna mwangaza zaidi, ambao kwa sasa unawakilisha asilimia 85 ya eneo lililowaka moto nchini Canada.""" Kwa kawaida, umeme hutokea katika makundi ambapo kunaweza kuwa na milipuko 50 hadi 100 kwa siku moja. Kwa mfano, katika Alaska, wakati wa dhoruba ya mwaka jana, umeme ulisababisha mafuriko 50,000 katika siku tano tu. Zaidi ya ekari milioni tano za miti ziliharibiwa katika msimu wa moto ambao ulibadilika kuwa wa pili mbaya zaidi katika historia ya jimbo hilo. Hakuna mtu aliyewahi kuona kitu kama hicho. Zaidi ya hayo, wadudu kama vile mwitu wa pine wa mlima na mwitu wa bark ya spruce ambao huua au kudhoofisha spruce na pine zilizokomaa zitaendelea kuongezeka katika mazingira haya ya joto, na kuongeza mafuta kwa kuchoma. "Mvua ya moto: ""Mvua ya moto"" ni hali ya hewa ambayo hutokea wakati watu wanapokuwa wakifanya kazi katika misitu, na ambayo huzuia moto usichomeke hadi hali ya moto ikitokea, kama ile inayoharibu maeneo ya karibu ya Fort McMurray." Chanzo: Alberta RCMP. Njia moja ya kupunguza tatizo hilo ni kuruhusu moto mwingi zaidi uwakae. Lakini katika Alberta ambapo kuna mchanga wa mafuta, mabomba na shughuli za fracking, hiyo ni karibu haiwezekani kufanya. Kuchochea moto katika maeneo ya mbali ni hatari kwa sababu kuna uwezekano wa kupotea. Njia pekee ya kuzuia moto kama huo ni kuwasha moto mwingine mbele yake ili kuufanya usiwe na mafuta. Hii inaweza kufanywa tu wakati upepo ni utulivu na wakati kuna mapumziko katika topografia ambayo inaruhusu wazima moto anchor katika. Uwezekano wa mchanga wa mafuta kuwaka moto ni mdogo kwa sababu umechanganywa na mchanga na ni vigumu sana kuwaka moto. Sehemu kubwa ya maji hayo huzikwa chini ya ardhi ambapo kuna oksijeni kidogo sana ya kuwasha moto. Jambo lenye kutia wasiwasi zaidi ni mchanga ulio chini ya msitu wa kaskazini. Moto wa msitu unaweza kuwaka ndani ya mchanga na kuwaka wakati wa majira ya baridi kali, na kuharibu miche na kuwaka tena wakati theluji inapomwagika. Ted Schuur amekuwa akifanya kazi ya kutafakari kuhusu mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa na moto wa mwituni. "Moto huo ukianza kuwaka katika tabaka za mwani, majani, na vitu vingine vya kikaboni vinavyotenganisha barafu ya kudumu na joto la uso, alisema mwanasayansi wa Chuo Kikuu cha Arizona Kaskazini, ""inaweza kutolewa kiasi kikubwa cha kaboni, kwani kuna kaboni mara mbili zaidi iliyofungwa katika barafu ya kudumu kuliko angahewa.""" """Kama zaidi na zaidi ya kaboni hii ni iliyotolewa kutoka permafrost, joto ni kwenda kuongezeka hata kwa kasi zaidi,"" anasema." """Kaboni ya barafu ya kudumu inaweza kuwa haionekani kama mabadiliko ya barafu ya bahari, lakini unaweza kubashiri kuwa mabadiliko makubwa yanatokea huko na itakuwa na athari kubwa kwa siku zijazo.""" Wataalamu wanasema kuwa moto huo unaenea katika eneo la ekari milioni 3.5 na ni mkubwa kuliko moto wowote uliowahi kuwaka Amerika Kaskazini katika miaka 150 iliyopita. Hakuna anayejua jinsi moto huo ungeonekana, lakini dhoruba ya moto ya Chinchaga ya mwaka wa 1950 inatupa wazo. Mlipuko huo ulichoma kwa muda wa siku 222 na kuharibu eneo la msitu lenye urefu wa kilomita 280. Mvua ya joto ya mwaka huu imesababisha moto mkubwa katika eneo la kaskazini mwa British Columbia. Wazima moto walikuwa wamejaa sana na moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto wa moto. Baada ya siku chache, ilivuka mpaka wa Alberta, ambako misitu ya majani ya mwaloni iliendelea kuenea. Moshi mkubwa uliotokana na moto huo uliwafanya watu fulani kusini waamini kwamba bomu la atomu lilikuwa limepuka. Haikuwa uvamizi wa wageni, mlipuko wa volkano au kupatwa kwa jua kama wengine walivyofikiri. Hata hivyo, ndege za ndege za Canada na Marekani zililazimika kuondolewa. Katika Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Fort Erie, na miji mingi ya New York, kulikuwa na giza sana wakati wa mchana hivi kwamba taa za uwanja wa besiboli, kutia ndani zile za Uwanja wa Yankee, zililazimika kuwaka. Moshi kutoka kwenye moto huo ulifika Ulaya. Watu fulani wa Denmark waliogopa sana walipoamka na kuona jua lenye rangi ya bluu likionekana kwenye upeo wa macho hivi kwamba walienda benki ili kutoa pesa walizokuwa wamehifadhi kwa muda mrefu. Si watu tu walioathiriwa. Mkulima mmoja huko Jamestown, New York, alielezea jinsi kuku zake, ambao walikuwa wametoka nje kwa ajili ya kutafuta chakula wakati wa mchana, ghafla waligundua kuwa walikuwa wakikamatwa na giza, kwa hiyo wakarudi nyuma kwenye uwanja wa ng'ombe kwa bidii zaidi ya kawaida, vichwa vyao vikisonga kwa kuchelewesha. "Mtaalamu wa nyota Carl Sagan alishangaa sana na moto wa Chinchaga kwamba alichunguza tukio hilo ili kuona jinsi linavyoweza kuendana na dhana yake ya ""kiangazi cha nyuklia.""" "Kulingana na Flannigan na mtaalamu wa moto Cordy Tymstra, ambaye hivi karibuni aliandika kitabu juu ya moto, ""Chinchaga ilibadilisha njia tunayoweza kupambana na moto.""" Lakini pia wanasema wakati umefika wa kufikiria tena mengi ya yale tuliyojifunza tangu wakati huo kwa sababu kutakuwa na moto mwingi zaidi, na mali zaidi - miji midogo, mashamba ya mafuta, mabomba, migodi, vibanda, na spishi zilizo hatarini mwa kutoweka - ambazo zitakuwa katika mstari wa moto. "Ninafananisha Ziwa Slave na Fort McMurray na pua inayotiririka damu", asema Flannigan. "Nyakati nyingine tunahitaji kuteseka kwa pua kadhaa zenye damu kabla ya kubadili mwenendo wetu". Picha: Alberta RCMP Ni mapema Februari na mashamba yanayozunguka Northern Lights Wildlife Society makazi katika Smithers, B.C., ni uchi na kahawia. "Mwaka wa 2000 kulikuwa na ukame mkubwa sana na ""mwenyeji wa asili wa Afrika"" waliohamia Marekani, kama vile Billy Beale, mfanyakazi mweusi wa kiwanda cha mbao, ambaye aliishi katika eneo la kusini mwa Marekani." Mwaka wa 2024 B.C. bajeti ina fedha kwa ajili ya punguzo hali ya hewa na kupambana na moto wa misitu, lakini inakosa mpya... Katika jarida la wiki hii, mwandishi wa habari wa madini Francesca Fionda anazungumza juu ya wazo la hadithi ambalo lilileta...