Last year, in June, a forest fire burned 6,000 acres in the Porters Lake area, destroying two houses. It was at the time referred to as the largest fire in Nova Scotia in 30 years (although I’m having trouble confirming that last detail).
This year, during the last week of April, a fire stretched over an apparently much larger area— total acreage for the burned area has yet to be given, but the fire spread from behind the Spryfield Lions Rink all the way to Fergesons Cove, over 20 kilometres away.
Forest fires in Nova Scotia are rare. Forest fires in Nova Scotia in spring are practically unheard of.
I’ve pulled up some historic weather data from Environment Canada, for Halifax. From 1977 to 2000, the average daily high temperature for April was 8.4 degrees. On average, only 9.6 days of April see temperatures reach above 10 degrees, and just 0.2 days see temperatures above 20 degrees– almost statistically irrelevant.
Since 2000, we’ve seen the following high temperatures:
2001 Average high: 7.2; extreme high: 18.2
2002 Average high: 7.9; extreme high: 14.5
2003 Average high: 8.0; extreme high: 21.8
2004 Average high: 9.1; extreme high: 26.3
2005 Average high: 10.0; extreme high: 20.1
2006 Average high: 10.1; extreme high: 18.4
2007 Average high: 7.9; extreme high: 23.7
2008 Average high: 11.3; extreme high: 18.7
2009 Average high: 10.7; extreme high: 29.5
I stress that we can not attribute any particular weather event, or any particular fire, to climate change. But modelling for global warming suggests that our springs will become significantly warmer, and the trends for the past decade bear that out. We can also expect drier springs, but the data are more erratic in that regard, at least so far– this year total rainfall for April was slightly more than usual, but it was clustered in just two major rain events, and was followed by an extended dry spell and record warm temperatures.
So, while we can’t say positively that either the Porters Lake or the Spryfield fires were the direct result of climate change, we can say with much certainty that the frequency of warmer and drier springs is increasing because of climate change, and with that increasing frequency of warm, dry springs, we should expect more forest fires.
We can also expect, throughout the year, more storms. Like Hurricane Juan, these storms will fall many trees, which will become fuel for future fires.
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Stephen King agrees: climate change contributed to fires
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.
Are the above average temperatures for Halifax adjusted for urban growth and the heat island effect of cities? If not you might not want to draw any conclusions from temp. Growth of urban centres has a huge impact on local land temperatures. Additionally when was the last time these forests burned? As forests age they become more susceptible to fire. When they burn they also tend to burn hotter, which can result in larger burn areas etc. This is one of the reason Wardens in our national parks set controlled burns. However forests on private land aren’t subject to these controlled burns and they can end up as tinder boxes waiting for a match. I suggest you do a bit more research before jumping to the conclusion that climate change is the cause of these fires…
Climate change is not THE cause of forest fires; it’s likely a contributing cause, though.
I actually think a larger contributing cause is related to the urban/wildland interface and contributing issues such as building codes and zoning. I’m presently researching that.
Nova Scotia is no stranger to storm systems, including hurricanes, that produce lots of blowdown. It’s been happening for millennia. As a result, fires that have lots of fuel have also been happening here for millennia. The fires themselves are not a problem…what’s a problem is that now there’s a lot more human habitation that stands to get burned.
People who choose to live in the woods or very close to woods are the ones who, in my opinion, ought to assume the obligation and cost of living in a potentially hazardous area, just as people who elect to live in a floodplain or on an unstable hillside ought to do the same. For example, for a sufficiently large group of homes, either the developer or the homeowners, or both, might wish to consider buying up buffer zones where the trees can be thinned and ground fuel cleared out, and/or wide firebreaks can be established. Quite frankly, their problem, not mine.
I might add, no small number of new houses have been built in or near forested areas with high fuel load *after* Hurricane Juan. I’m sorry if this sounds callous, but I just have no sympathy for someone who does that and then moans about losing their house to a wildfire.
The Realist in Dartmouth got it exactly right. Forget about the enviro-alarmists like Tim; the real cause of this is people building million-dollar McMansions in the middle of a fuel pile.
I worked on fires for many years in California– both as a reporter and as an investigator for a lawyer involved in forest fire cases.
As I said above, I do indeed think that the primary issue is the (sub)urban/wildland interface– people building in fire zones (or, rather, zoning codes that allow developers to build in fire zones).
But here’s the deal– there’s been no reason, or not much of a reason, for Nova Scotians to worry about forest fires. This isn’t California; it’s Nova Scotia! Rainy, wet, Nova Scotia.
Yesterday, someone happened to contact me about prescribed burns in Keji– the complaint from botanists being that fire has NOT been a part of the natural cycle there, as opposed to out west, where prescribed burns mimmic the natural cycles that have been interfered with.
I’m positing that the “normal” climate is being budged in a warmer, drier direction, and the recent weather information bears that out. Also, it’s precisely the risk identified in HRM’s climate change forecasts, detailed documents drawn up to assess the dangers and costs of climate change. (I’ll be interviewing the people who put that document together next week.)
So, climate change is bringing a new reality. The question, then, is what do we do about it?
HRM inherited a lot of shit development from pre-amalgamation days, and still approves development where it shouldn’t be approved. I’ve hiked along MacIntosh Run, where this fire occurred, and was astonished to see new development going in way back in the woods.
I think the issue is that Nova Scotians– home buyers, developers, regulators, politicians– have never much had to think about forest fire dangers, at least in a large way. It simply hasn’t been on the radar screen. But now, partly because of the higher temperatures and drier conditions related to climate change, and partly because of the increased pressures of suburbanization, these issues are becoming more important. We need to think about them.
And there are ways to address the concerns. Development needs to be prohibited in some areas entirely. In other areas, there can be tougher building codes to anticipate fire risks— wooden decks and shake roofs should be prohibited, landscaping should be stepped back from structures, on site water supplies should be mandated, etc.
Other places have had to deal with these issues for a long time. Now Nova Scotians need to take them seriously.
I’m no fan of spreading development, for reasons related to outdoor recreation (fishing, mountain biking, hiking, climbing etc) but I’ll try to set that bias aside for a moment. When all is said and done, if someone has a plot of property out in the boonies, they can (and often will) eventually build a cottage or house on it.
An immediate public concern here, in relation to forest fires, is simply public safety. Safety of the people who have chosen to live in a dangerous spot, and safety of the first responders. Put a domicile in an isolated spot, and you endanger not only yourself and your family, but also the lives of firefighters, police and paramedics who now have to adapt their strategies to possibly more risky ones simply because they are duty bound to save life.
In HRM there will be many examples of this kind of risky development. We just saw one example, and some of that risky development burned up. As other examples I’ll note the roughly 10 kilometre stretch of development along Myra Road, on the west side of Porter’s Lake north of Hwy 7, and the houses that are proliferating into the hinterland off Marine Drive, Dyke Road and Cow Bay Road. Point being, and again we saw this with the most recent fire, how do these people evacuate? Even if they have water access, are weather conditions going to be such that you’d want to put your family into a small boat on a large lake? When you’ll only last minutes in that water if you swamp? I think not.
So part of the development permit process should be a realistic assessment of fire hazard. Between the various provincial and municipal agencies the data is certainly there. As Tim pointed out, other parts of the world take this kind of thing much more seriously, and they already do this kind of risk assessment. Also as Tim pointed out, in some cases it may be necessary to reject development in some areas, at least in the proposed form, or require some mitigation strategies like buffer zones of various types.
All through this Spryfield fire, I was thinking: Kingswood is next. That place is a disaster waiting to happen. Something like 2,000 houses on half-to-3/4 acres, spread throughout a forest.
Tim— I, like you, think that suburban areas are more at risk. Take Tantallon for example. Haliburton Hills/Heights has about 3000 households in a heavily wooded area. The only benefit is that it’s flanked by a lake on one side. Plus you’re more likely to get people in that same area, doing things like burning brush and such because they’re more secluded.
My heating bill tells me April was not as warm as some more recent years. The heating oil companies have data for what they call ‘degree days’. Compare oil sales for the past decade.
Kids in the woods close to their homes and setting fires after school.
Joe— seeing that oil prices have increased 150% over the past 10 years, that’s an unfair assessment. That’s like saying TV causes violence.
Dr Fever, when I say my heating bill I am looking at the amount of oil not the amount of money.
That could also change: year over year, your furnace loses a significant amount of efficiency. That could be attributed to that. Yes, this past winter has been a tough one, and it was overall cold, but in all honesty, April was warmer than normal. When was the last time you saw a 20+ C day in April like we had a few weeks ago?
FORGET CLIMATE CHANGE! Porter’s lake fire was started by a careless human on a very windy day. Last weeks fire, I bet, was also started by a careless human, and it was a windy day. Therein lies the problem.
One other point; having fought forest fires, I wouldn’t want to be a forest fire fighter in the Juan battered woods around here! Fighting fires is really really dangerous and unbelievably tiring work, and that’s in a situation with a nice mature standing forest! These Juan woods are increasingly exhausting to get around in, difficult to stay oriented, and really impossible to always have an escape route in the back of your mind in case the fire starts coming at you! If you meet any of these fire fighters, I suggest you shake their hand and tell them what an amazing job they are doing, you may not get the chance after the next forest fire.
Climate change doesn’t *start* forest fires. It allows them to spread more easily.
There have always been and always will be careless people, doing stupid things. When they do those stupid things in the rain, or in an area that’s soaking wet and cold, no big deal. When they do those stupid things when the woods are a tender box, however, we’ve got a problem.
Dr Fever, my furnace was serviced in November and tested over 80% efficient. I think max efficiency is 85% which means my 30+ years old furnace is up to snuff.
As Art Irwin tells the CBC listeners, a well maintained furnace can last at least 50 years.
One freak hot day in April, quickly followed by several 5C days.
2.5 questions for Tim from an ecological modeller (who purportedly is supposed to know what’s going on):
1. When was the Earth’s climate ‘static’? Has it ever been?
2. Could you qualify the term ‘statistically irrelevant’?
Thanks.
PS. If I ever attempted to make the kinds of jumps with the kind of language and data you’re using here in scientific peer-reviewed journals – I’d be bitch slapped into tomorrow and in search of a new job.
PPS. Just sayin’…
Dr Fever, I had a saleman in from a major installation company and went through all the options such as natural gas, propane, electric, new windows and new furnace. He looked at how much I spent, the combustion efficiency test and told me that until I decided on finishing the basement I should do ZERO. And buying a new oil furnace was a waste of money for the very minor increase in efficiency. He could have told another story and told me I needed a new furnace but didn’t. I have listened to Art Irwin numerous times and oil never heard hin say an oil furnace can get much above 85% efficiency. Give me a reference to a site cos I would love to cut the oil bill. Thanks in anticipation.
Here’s the government site done by Natural Resources:
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/infoso…
Enjoy.
“2.5 questions for Tim from an ecological modeller (who purportedly is supposed to know what’s going on):
1. When was the Earth’s climate ‘static’? Has it ever been?
2. Could you qualify the term ‘statistically irrelevant’?
Thanks.
PS. If I ever attempted to make the kinds of jumps with the kind of language and data you’re using here in scientific peer-reviewed journals – I’d be bitch slapped into tomorrow and in search of a new job.”
Uh oh Tim… shit just got real.
Why are there more fires? Maybe the giant fucking fuel pile left everywhere. “Oh we can’t move it because of budworm” “Oh we can’t go in and shred it all” And after the Porter’s Lake mess, “Oh, it’s been years, all that wood has rotted away and wasn’t an issue” What the FUCK? I wish I could remember the name of that woman, and what government department she was from.
PS Tim: you want climate change, anyone ever tell you about the massive funnel cloud last year the same week as the bike rally in Digby? Came in off the harbour, over Autoport, and people were seeing it in freaking Bedford. The lightning strikes with the same storm system were bugshit.
Yes, I believe hali pretty much summer this up…
dammit… summed… need to proofread . Anyway, can’t stand how one movie makes everyone think they’re an ecologist.
The problem with climate change isn’t that it suddenly warms every day in spring higher than normal, it’s that it makes things more extreme. So on a day that might be warmer statistically, will be far warmer now, like our 20 degree saturday recently. Or if it rains, it’s going to rain a lot more than usual. Our storms will hit harder, dry spells will last longer. NS weather has always been hard to predict, but now what we can’t predict will be far worse when it hits, because we won’t be at all prepared for it.
Reminds me of a Vonnegut book, I just can’t remember which one.
wasnt this fire started by people and a camp fire or something of the sort
Tim;
You may have found the source of one fire, or even of the Wednesday April 29th afternoon fire. There was a second fire that started about a half hour after the first to the North and further upwind and was clearly not a result of sparks carried by the fierce W to WNW to NW wind. The second fire was observed to ‘catch-up’ with the first and I suspect broadened the front somewhat to the east, or to the ENE. If this proves to be so then it can be argued that the second fire was perhaps the main factor in the loss of the homes on Aaron’s Way and Fortress Drive. Possibly if there had been just the first fire to contend with it would have passed to the west of the two roads?
None of this is any consolation to those who suffered losses or fire damage.
Tim what you do not have is a corporate memory of such ‘Spryfield’ fires. They are a Spring tradition I am afraid. “Cross the Runs and let’s have a campfire” – or worse. When I took my first bevy of Geology 100 students across the Arm on the Purcell’s Cove ferry of the day in September 1964 to learn how to map the rocks of the Dal Quarry there had been such a wind-driven forest fire, perhaps the previous Spring, that had swept across the ‘wild lands’ and was stopped by the County firecrews and the homes on Oceanview Drive were spared unlike the outcome on April 30th in Ferguson’s Cove. The ritual of such Spring fires beside The Runs has continued with the children and now the grandchildren of the careless kids of 1964. I will warrant that if one does a careful documentation of such ‘Spryfield’ Spring-fire call-outs of the fire Depts. of the County, them Halifax and now HRM that they will average at least one per year for the past 50 years.
Thus the causes of such fires are not necessarily climate change per se. A dry forest and to a lessor degree the Hurricane Juan blowdown were contributors but in my view it was the very strong wind that moved the fire at greater that 30 metres per minute. The 8 homes in Ferguson’s Cove were probably lost before the first responders were even on the scene. It was the helicopters with their 90 gallon buckets of seawater that saved one home fronting on the Purcell’s Cove Road just north of Aaron’s Way and so prevented the fire from leaping the P. Cove Rd. into the somewhat older ‘upper’ part of Ferguson’s Cove.
I am not speaking from hard data in any of the above and what I am supposing re the fire’s path will not be ever established unless there were time lapse photos being collected by an observer in a dedicated aircraft over the first two hours. I am certain that this fire and its rapid spread did not allow for such a luxury. I do know that had the fire travelled before the fierce wind a few degrees counterclockwise Ferguson’s Cove proper would have suffered more homes lost including my own; a few more degrees counterclockwise would have nailed Purcell’s Cove as did the 1964 fire and a bit further to the east the fire would have easily travelled south of Williams Lake to the Royal N. S. Yatch Squadron and the posh homes on the Arm in S. Jollimore.
Regards
Alan Ruffman
Ferguson’s Cove
May 7, 2009
Dr. Fever said: “… most furnaces manufactured in the past 10 or 15 years can exceed 95% efficiency.”
And then, when challenged to show some proof of that, gave this URL: “Here’s the government site done by Natural Resources: http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/infoso…“
When I visited that page, hoping to be enlightened, I could find no reference to a 95% efficient furnace. The best I found was a reference to “…a seasonal efficiency of 83 to 89 percent…”
Can anyone point to an actual oil furnace with an efficiency of 95%? I want one1
Rob
“Can anyone point to an actual oil furnace with an efficiency of 95%?”
http://www.hometips.com/buying-guides/high…
The measurement for efficiency is called an Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) rating. All furnaces now come posted with this rating, generally in the form of a yellow “Energy Guide” label. AFUE ratings run from the 78% minimum to the Carrier SXC’s 96.7%. Though most makers list their furnaces as “high efficiency,” the DOE sometimes refers to units with an AFUE higher than 90% as “high efficiency” and lower-AFUE models as “mid efficiency.”
Carrier has many furnaces that exceed 90% efficiency, and a handful beyond 95%:
http://www.residential.carrier.com/product…