B.C. Sending Forest Fire Fighters to Quebec

Sunday, June 17, 2007 03:58 AM

More B.C. Forest fire fighters are heading to Quebec.

164 forest fire fighters and specialists are on their way to the Val d'Or and Roberval areas. They will be there for up to 19 days.

Personnel being deployed include seven unit crews of 20 people each, who are dispatched to larger fires where significant resources may be needed, a 19-member incident management team, which will manage multiple fires, two fireline supervisors, one bilingual agency representative and several other personnel. Three helicopters have also been deployed.

Quebec is experiencing a warming and drying weather trend, with a lightning storm this week that caused over 100 fire starts. Firefighters in the Roberval areas are fighting two major fires that are about 2,700 and 4,700 hectares in size.

This is the third deployment of British Columbia fire crews this year, with a total of 205 crew members deployed to Ontario and Quebec in May.

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Sunday, June 17, 2007 03:58 AM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on June 17 2007 7:14 AM

Fire fighting is the right term. There are no forest fires in Quebec because there is nothing worth calling timber there. Just a bunch of scrub, rocks and swamp. Fire fighting is just for political optics over in Quebec.

Posted by: herbster on June 17 2007 11:21 AM

Actually there is a very large forest industry in Quebec, the second largest wood exporter after B.C.In 2006, British Columbia had the largest share of lumber exports (63%) followed by Quebec (16%), Ontario (8%) and the other provinces (13%) They are used to forests that are less productive than B.C.s'-Something that we will have to learn.
Between 1990 and 1999, total British Co-
lumbia value added wood exports to the
United States increased at an average an-
nual compound rate of 18 per cent � faster
than the 12 per cent growth for exports of
lumber, but slower than the rates of growth
for value added wood exports from other
provinces. Value added wood exports to
the United States from Alberta, for exam-
ple, grew at an average annual compound
growth rate of 27 per cent, as did those
from Ontario. Valued added wood exports
from Quebec grew at 29 per cent

Posted by: owl on June 17 2007 12:35 PM

It appears that they have not learned that one of the reasons for the MPB attack is the position we have taken with respect to managing fires like this. We should be letting them go to burn off the mature forests we have not managed to harvest yet.

We spend all that money to make sure that the beetles can increase their numbers and kill the trees we saved. Then we have to pay for that too.

Is nature winning yet?

Posted by: owl on June 17 2007 12:38 PM

Actually when I moved here from Ontario I was very unimpressed with the scrub they called forests here. The coastal area is different, but the central interior is mostly pecker wood until one gets into the foothills and there is more moisture.