Wildfires intensify in Canada prompting US warnings over smoke. In related news: US Ambassador Hoekstra says Trump is serious about wildfire tariffs; Ontario Premier Ford calls US criticism unacceptable; smoke from US wildfires is affecting BC’s air quality; Ontario wildfires ravage another First Nation, and disrupt Domtar’s forestry operations; and Oregon governor Kotek invokes the Conflagration Act–again. Meanwhile: University of Calgary researchers warn that wildfire smoke may also affect your brain.
In Business news: fallout from Canfor’s mill closure includes the union seeking retirement bridging; and Vaughn Palmer saying the province was warned years ago. Meanwhile: Stewart Muir says BC’s forest policies are worsening Canada’s climate problem; an Oregon commentator says mill closures make it harder to reduce wildfire risk; Blueberry River First Nations is developing a native plant orchard; and US states can’t offset the weakened federal endangered-species habitat protections.
Finally, on mass timber, the Florida Building Commission can’t see the forest for the trees. Busy news day… see all the stories in today’s Tree Frog.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
A historic drought is turning Colorado’s mountain landscapes into a tinderbox. After last winter’s record-low snowpack, wildland firefighters who continuously monitor indexes of weather and climate data to help predict wildfire risk and how conditions might affect fire behavior say they’re staring down unprecedented levels of dryness. “That lack of snowpack has had a very real impact on the fuels, the vegetation — specifically the large logs that are on the ground,” said Jim King, the fire behavior analyst for the Willow Fire burning near Leadville. “Those are 1,000-hour fuels. The way we measure those in this line of work, they’re just at the very peak. They’re basically as dry as they can get.” …King described how bone-dry logs in the dense forest near Turquoise Lake, along with high winds, contributed to 100-foot columns of flames and extreme fire behavior that at times threw “spots” …more than a half mile ahead of the blaze.
Smoke from two major wildfires burning in British Columbia’s Fraser Canyon is leading to air quality warnings across parts of the province, with an emergency physician warning the health effects extend far beyond watery eyes and a scratchy throat. “It is considered to be one of the biggest public health threats that we face,” said Dr. Courtney Howard, who is also the president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association. … “The particulate matter in smoke that’s less than 2.5 microns can go all the way down into our lungs, and the ultrafine particles can actually cross over into our bloodstream,” she said. …Howard said scientists are only beginning to understand the long-term health effects of repeated wildfire smoke exposure because the research is still limited. “We don’t have good evidence on the long-term outcomes yet,” she said. But a small number of studies, according to Howard, have suggested possible links with high rates of brain cancer and lung cancer.
Firefighting aircraft battled to contain a wildfire raging in a forest south of Paris for a second day on Monday, with the blaze forcing some residents from their homes as the region baked in a latest heatwave. French officials rushed two firefighting planes to the Paris region Sunday, after a fire erupted south of the French capital, disrupting traffic during a busy summer travel weekend and piling more misery on a region sweltering through its latest heatwave. The fire, which officials described as “very virulent” and of “exceptional scale”, began late afternoon in the sprawling Fontainebleau forest about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south-east of the capital, a onetime royal hunting preserve that today is dotted with quiet villages. It had raced across 800 hectares and was still spreading, officials said early Monday, causing the partial closure of the A6 highway, the country’s main north-south artery.