The other shoe dropped

this sad news of this enormous fire had pictures and an article in my local paper here on long island yesterday.

They are leaving for Vancouver Island today. Iain's in-laws are in Duncan, and the others have a house in Ladysmith, not far away. I hope he takes a lot of time to relax. His employer is talking about flying the workers in and out of Fort Mac once they get the mine going again. Could be a while, though.

Stuart Ablett said:

Glad they are safe, can't replace the people, the stuff, yeah, it can be replaced.

Do they know how the fire started?

Just curious.

Domo

Click to expand...

Found this comment on Reddit, Stu:

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i8i4p/eli5_why_did_the_fort_mcmurray_wildfires_escalate/

"Very low amounts of precipitation over the winter, hot and dry conditions in the spring, and high winds fueling the fire beyond what firefighters could possibly control. It's now so big that it is literally creating its own weather system, adding more wind to the equation. Continued high winds spread hot sparks, ashes and debris that spread the fire to new areas."

I've also seen an imgur gallery that overlayed the fire area onto maps of other major cities, and that was when the fire was even smaller (like half what it is now): http://imgur.com/gallery/11OP7

This thing is massive.

Just to put some more perspective on it, Here are two pictures of Iain's house, one not long after it was built, and one as it looks today, courtesy of Google Earth.

Wow! That second picture looks like a moon 'scape with every thing burned like that... I'm glad your family got out and away.