Fire pushes 3,000 people out of homes near Halifax

good stuff:

Barry Artiste, I like this story. It's good stuff.

good stuff:

Barry Artiste, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Thanks everyone for your comments and GS,. it certainly seems like the World weather wise is going to Hell in a Handbasket.   One also wonder if they have the 4 Weathermen of the Apocalypse?

good stuff:

Barry Artiste, I like this story. It's good stuff.  sorry things are getting you as well.  I remember the Fairbanks daily news miner had a story that said, "  13 fires not 5

Read the story to see how well our smoke-jumpers were doing... well the fires had intergrated and they were now 5 big fires not 13 smaller ones.  Thats one of those "teaser"  headlines.

Thanks Politisite for the comments, certainly the USA has had their share of disasters and now I guess Mother Nature grows bored with you, and decided to come to Canada for summer vacation

good stuff:

Barry Artiste, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Thanks for the comments Mettacara, if I didn't know any better I would think we are all experiencing a world epidemic

good stuff:

Barry Artiste, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Yeah it does seem as though the weather is most unusual, moreso in the past few years than in the recorded history over the last few hundred years.

Makes ya wonder whether it's due to humans, or due to some longer term "normal" weathercycles ...we have little proof of the thousand-year cycles, for example.

My cousin, who was born and raised in Halifax, where I also spent a year more than three decades ago writes that "The fires are mainly outside 6 or 7 suburban areas around Halifax. There is some speculation that it could be Arson. Forest fires do happen in Nova Scotia in the summer sometimes, what with so much of the forest being spruce trees and the forest bed having lots of dry needles fallen from the trees. The fires spread with the wind coming off the ocean, too. These fires are being contained and the threat to people's homes has passed. I am surprised that there would be so many fires from natural causes, actually, since it usually isn't so dry in the summer that there would be so many fires. Nonetheless, since there is so much forest that can burn in the summer,  the Dept of Lands & Forests is typically prepared for these things."

She further adds:

"The suburbs of Halifax have been growing and developing very rapidly in recent years and the property values have really gone up. Lots of US vacationers buying summer properties, and more jobs opening up in the Halifax area drawing young families to settle there, so the

suburban sprawl has resulted in a lot of timber being cut down to make way for houses, condos, suburban malls, bigger roads, etc."

Thanks Rumana for the comments and insights,let's hope it is not arson

UPDATE:

Efforts now continue as the fire stabilizes. Attention is now turned to the cause of the fire. The affected burned area totaled about 1,925 hectares as of June 17,2008 when Halifax News last updated.

The firefighting efforts were assisted by a New Brunswick water-bomber crew, with three fixed-wing air crafts, a water bomber from Newfoundland and Labrador and one from Quebec. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre and the Canadian Mutual Aid Resource Sharing Agreement made these resources possible.

Kim Kinrade also contributed a nice piece on Halifax News http://www.halifaxnewsnet.ca/index.cfm?sid=144558&sc=612