Glenn McGillivray

When the wildfires get rolling, the armchair experts get trolling. …social media is filled with onlookers asking why tankers cannot simply extinguish massive blazes… when it comes to Canada’s vast boreal forest, the sheer physics of extreme fire behavior can render standard suppression tactics practically useless. High-intensity crown fires often generate their own weather systems, create immense thermal energy and travel at remarkable speeds across vast and remote landscapes. Understanding why these massive forest fires can be nearly impossible to suppress is not a story of inadequate firefighting response. It is a lesson in the unyielding forces of nature, the contributions made by a rapidly warming climate, and the realities of wildland fire management in Canada’s north. Here are a just a few reasons why large Canadian boreal crown fires can be nearly impossible to extinguish … It is a fundamental conflict between limited human resources and the raw, untameable physics of a fire-adapted ecosystem.