Slash Burning Leads to Smoke in Bowl Area
Smoke can be seen and smelled in the bowl area of Prince George Saturday morning. Photo 250News
Prince George, B.C. – Slash burning outside city limits is reportedly responsible for the very smokey conditions reported in the Prince George area Friday night and into this morning.
Shortly before 2pm Friday city firefighters were dispatched to locate the source of a huge column of smoke that was spotted by residents along Otway Road and North Nechako Road. The search proceeded well beyond the point where the pavement at the far west end of North Nechako turns into a dirt road. A number of piles of slash were found burning.
Then around 11:30 last night fire crews again were searching along the north side of the Nechako for the source of heavy smoke. And there were reports of numerous people showing up at the UHNBC Emergency ward complaining of breathing problems related to thick smoke above the city.
It was determined that heavy smoke was drifting into the bowl area from northwest of the Nechako River.
Comments
That was almost reminiscent of fire season,glad to be living outside the bowl…
Brings back memories of sept to November and seeing the huge slash burns all over the place was awesome to see and behold but sadly it’s a rare sight now was the best way to reseed clear cuts
This as-a-hat needs to be publically outed. Ruined my night also.
I’m sure commercial burning requires a permt. 250 jornos, check that out please.
Smoke effected my typing also . Slash burner is an asshat.
Whatever you don’t heat your house with wood. It might get a tad smokey in the neighbourhood.
I don’t think this was planned to fill the valley with smoke…or I hope not.
When there is no wind the valley fills with smoke and dust and pollution.
It will however have huge costs..
those with health issues will pay..as will the ambulance services costs.
Fire department will be responding to a lot of false calls as when all is said and done the smoke smelled will be from the burn…and no they can’t just say slash burn smoke and not attend as the first time they do that could be a real fire.
Lets hope the wind picks up real soon and blows away this mess
Not sure what these guys expected, they do this every year and every year the results are the same. Prevailing winds are from the West so lets do some slash burning in the river valley and wonder why it gets smokey in town?
They need to do a better job utilizing the bio mass rather then just burning the stuff they don’t want.
The slash left after logging is not determined by the contractor, it is determined by the mills and ministry of forests. Loggers must abide by the specs set out by those two and are fined if they fail to meet their commitments.
With the amount of pulp that is being utilized now, and the roadside chipping, the amount of slash in the bush has been dramatically decreased.
Further to your comments yesterday Tom.
Yes Canfor does ship logs to the lower mainland, for sure 100% they do from their Polar mill in Bear Lake. They sort the large dimension logs right by their old scale for shipment to the Lower Mainland. The trucking company that hauls them comes up from the lower mainland to pick them up.
Also the First Nations in McLoad Lake export raw logs albeit in small quantities using shipping containers.
Also the claim that BC Custom Timber has been dormant for two years is false. They processed over a thousand truck loads of logs this spring, so that must account for some activity. Most of it was chipped, but they were a past exporter of cants and logs.
And the PG sort yard in the BCR site may not be currently exporting raw logs, but in past years they were involved in raw log exports.
It’s not a lot in the PG area, and not even an every day practice… But the point being that your claim it never happens 100% never is BS. It’s more of a coastal thing and we can all see what that has done to the coastal forest industry. My point was I don’t think anyone wants to see that happening in the interior with the annual allowable cut on the decrease.
Eagleone,
Canfor Polar ships their oversize from Bear Lake to Vanderhoof. Fact.
BC Custom Timber does not ship raw logs. Fact.
PG Sort Yard has not shipped logs in many years, the last few years Jimmy Parrish has ran a reload out of that location which took in Aspen from local contractors and shipped it by rail to Ainsworth in 100 Mile, agian, not an export. Fact.
This year Edgewater took over the reload portion for Ainsworth, once again no raw log export. Fact.
What the natives do we have no control over, allowable cut or not.
Everything I have said here is easily proven with a simple phone call to the number I provided you with.
Your information? Obviously from your fantasys while driving your chip truck down the road. Your giving truckers even a worse name with your know it all drivel that is time and time again proven to be wrong.
Eagleone,
and to add to BC Custom timber, yes their Cant side has been almost dormant for a few years and yes they have shifted focus to chipping raw logs, which once again is not a raw log export. On quick phone call to Dave will confirm that for you as well. 250-567-2874
Anything else I can prove you wrong on?
“Your information? Obviously from your fantasys while driving your chip truck down the road. Your giving truckers even a worse name with your know it all drivel that is time and time again proven to be wrong”
Is this how all log truck drivers talk about other truck drivers? Speaking about know it all. :-)
So Tom you admit that BC Custom has in fact had activity within the last two years? I guess you looked that up too.
I guess maybe the guy I talked to was lieing when he said he was hauling the peelers to Richply I think it was? I’m not sure I see why Polar would send peeler logs to a stud mill in Vanderhoof, but you state this as fact as well, so….
I accept your point that the sort yard has changed hands since it ‘shipped logs’ as you put it. I have no argument with that.
You make some good points Tom, but nothing that disproves what I was saying, which is that raw log exports have taken place in this region, and we have seen industry consolidation based on lack of local timber supply (same argument used on the coast when they closed their mills, prior to a massive 400% increase in raw log exports). Fact is that removing the aupprenticy (spl) practice will hurt local employment in the milling side of the industry.
Good news for you is that even if the allowable cut is cut by 20% the greater distance to haul to a mill for the available timber will balance most of the cuts out.
Also, not sure where this chip hauling thing you obsess about comes from. Talk about someone dreaming up facts lol.
It stinks out there. They are not only burning slash. There is also the smell of plastics and rubber in the air. Why do this on the Easter long weekend? Should be investigated and fines handed out.
I think that Northern Health should get involved! Medical authorities can not declare that smoke from burning wood is definitely a cause of cancer on the one hand and then on the other hand keep silent when slash burning and wood stoves keep polluting the very air we breathe!
Very disappointing and puzzling, to say the least! Since there is no power generating facility in the area that burns slash all logging left overs MUST be chipped and shredding on site!
Come on, do what you are getting paid for! Start with banning wood stoves within city limits! Then tackle the slash burning that sickens and harms people!
and from an environmental point, burned blocks reproduce trees much better.
By the comments, sounds like some transplants from the lower mainland who’ve never experienced slash burns in fall and spring. Not too often it fills the bowl like this, but that’s life. Farmers clear land and burn what can’t be used, in the spring when there’s very low risk to forest. Happens every year since land clearing started. Slash from logging, same thing.
Did notice a definite stench though, like some idiot burning garbage in the back yard.
Yup the city s loaded with bleeding hearts trying to live like they were in the lower mainland and whine about everything they have no clue about northern living or the realities of said living in the north typical southerners
I’ve lived in the north all my life and I see no reason for people to burn wood in urban areas when natural gas is so cheap.
My neighbour has smoke boiling out of his smokestack almost 24/7 and I am sick of waking up with watery eyes, the top of the back of my throat stinging, and a tight chest.
If you want to burn, go to a campsite or live in a rural area on acreage. If you are 30 feet from my bedroom window, then we’re going to have a problem.
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever if they want to live that lifestyle and burn. As long as they keep it on their property.
See, that’s what it’s all about. Nothing in my lifestyle affects their lifestyle. Yet I have to keep my windows shut and essentially be a shut in because I can’t sit in my backyard or on my deck because of the constant wood smoke billowing into my yard and home.
And no, I’m not moving. I have rebuilt my home inside and out to the tune of over $ 130,000.00. It’s our retirement investment. Why should I have to move because of some inconsiderate slob that has a firebug mentality?
They have bylaws protecting people from barking dogs loud stereos, and other things. Why do they give these people a pass that affect so many?
Logging slash is usually burned in Oct-Nov. Burning now has the chance of it flaming up later in the summer. If you have a stump start on fire in January from smoldering a few months it is not that big a deal as if it happens in July. Some woodlots used burn early spring in the Chief Lake area but I have helped put a few of those out and lesson learned for the owners.
I took the dog fro a walk at 2am last night and wondered who had their wood burning fireplace(s) on.
I wonder if the smell and associated aerosols of the urine and other farm animal waste they spread and spray onto the farms in the Fraser Valley have any detrimental health effects. With the amount of times I can smell it and see it being spread, I would hate to live there.
Depending on the outcome of the election down south it may not be wood smoke we have to worry about but glow in the dark smoke.
nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald-trump-transcript.html?_r=0
god this guy is an idiot and every time he opens his mouth it becomes more obvious. No wonder he wants to talk about his package size during debates as he is too stupid to talk policy and make any sense. Says he has a “good brain” maybe in terms of temperature as it is kept warm by that thing on his head…certainly not enough synapses firing at any one moment to create an intelligent thought.
A Sample from the NY Times article.
“TRUMP: An absolute last step. I think it’s the biggest, I personally think it’s the biggest problem the world has, nuclear capability. I think it’s the single biggest problem. When people talk global warming, I say the global warming that we have to be careful of is the nuclear global warming. Single biggest problem that the world has. Power of weaponry today is beyond anything ever thought of, or even, you know, it’s unthinkable, the power. You look at Hiroshima and you can multiply that times many, many times, is what you have today. And to me, it’s the single biggest, it’s the single biggest problem.”
HUH?
Ataloss will crap his pants if nuclear global warming becomes a thing:P
Sparrow:”No wonder he (Trump) wants to talk about his package size during debates as he is too stupid to talk policy and make any sense.”
Actually you missed the fact that it was Rubio who first brought this package issue up when he taunted Trump for having *small hands* so Trump commented on that later! I say the global warming that we have to be careful of is the nuclear global warming.
Trump:” I say the global warming that we have to be careful of is the nuclear global warming.”
The Donald is comparing the global warming we are experiencing now with the global warming which would ensue after a global nuclear war! He has a good point! I am not defending the guy but one should realize that the popularity of Trump is the result of previous career politicians having disappointed the American voters election after election. He is taking advantage of the dissatisfaction of more than two thirds of the polled voters who are sick and tired of how the country has been run in the past! Who’s fault is it that people are attracted to him? NOT his fault, for sure!
Rubio made the comment at a rally not a nationally televised debate, big difference. The whole thing started a few years ago when Spy magazine called Trump a short fingered vulgarian and the idiot is still sending the editor pictures of his hands with comments like “see no so short” written in gold pen.
With the amount of support he is getting in the GOP it is just Flint that should be checking lead levels in the water. He is also fanning the flames of racial and religious intolerance white supremacist and anti semites at most of his events. David Duke? …..uh….I don’t know no David Duke.
Read the interview and let me know if this clown has what it takes to be “leader of the free world.”
The idiots yelling racist dressed in kkk outfits trying to intimidate Trump voters and families with young kids at his rallies are the real racist fools IMO. Their actions are far worse than anything Trump has said.
I thought it was really rich when Trump goes to the AIPAC conference and gives the Israelies everything they wanted to hear and yet he still gets boycotted by them as they call him a racist for insisting on rule of law and a fair deal in dealing with the Palistinian issue….
So treating people equally before the law makes one a racist if it involves the Israeli’s in their relations with others? That is really what you are saying isn’t it Sparow.
Get the trump outa here.
Good idea! It is their election and not ours! Anything can happen and by Murphy’s Law the slice of bread always hits the floor with the jam and peanut butter facing down!
Good entertainment, though!
I am so sick and tired of elections. We had to put up with all the hype of our own, then we’re inundated with this knock down drag out dirty fight below the border that is absolutely stupid. Trump the bonehead and that two faced Clinton.
Those burning wood in their homes, do they have house insurance. It is now very hard to get house insurance with a wood stove unless paying a heavy penalty. I do not know how this applies to pellet stoves.
I have a wood stove and two pellet stoves on my insurance. It went up by 15 dollars each. Had to be installed by a wet certified tech and CSA approved, other than that no issues. Only used about 10 bags of pellets this winter and only fired up the stove in the garage for one day while monkey wrenching, rest of the days were heated by the natural gas boiler. When it is -30 out the pellet stoves are nice to take the edge off. The boiler can’t keep up and the house drops to 17 degrees otherwise, the sins of having too many large windows and concrete slab under your feet
Sanders is the only one who has some credibility. He voted against participation in the Afghanistan and Iraq ventures. People are upset, unpredictable and angry, many are unemployed or on welfare. It will be interesting to watch the outcome. Better than watching the Canucks!
Comments for this article are closed.