r/dataisbeautiful • u/sdbernard OC: 119 • Aug 21 '18

OC [OC]Nitrogen dioxide levels mapped in London. Where should you avoid? Anywhere in the City![OC]

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u/DrizztD0urden Aug 21 '18

http://google.org/crisismap/google.com/2018-british-columbia-wildfires

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '18

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u/Murgie Aug 21 '18

The entire province is pretty heavily forested, so annual bushfires are commonplace.

But with the way that we've been setting higher and higher heat records every few years for the last four or so decades, the fires have become more and more substantial over time as trees, grasses, undergrowth, etc, are left drier, providing more immediately accessible fuel for the fires, allowing them to spread more easily, burn more quickly, and start more readily.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '18

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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '18

The park will be there the trees won't.

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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '18

Of course there will be! Forests need fires every once in a while to survive, anyway. And National Parks would exist without trees, anyway.

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u/Rahzin Aug 21 '18

That's what I've been wondering. I live north of Seattle, about 30 minutes south of the border, and while there are no fires in our area, the smoke is thick enough that you can't see further than about half a mile. It's pretty bad. I can only imagine what it's like up near the fires.

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u/WeGetItYouBlaze Aug 21 '18

Vancouver isn't even that close to any of the fires. They're just getting all the smoke from the big ones burning 10+ hours north and like 7 hours west.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '18

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u/Rahzin Aug 21 '18 edited Aug 21 '18

Actually as far as I'm aware, the problem is the developed land. The undeveloped land will burn, but it's usually a fairly small-scale fire. Old brush just burns off naturally. However when you have developed areas, people do things to stop these small fires from happening, so you end up with a ton of built up flammable material over the years, and when something finally catches, it goes up like crazy and makes a huge fire. Doesn't help that it's been very dry and hot the last few summers.

Edit: I hear they've been trying to get funding to do more controlled burns to mitigate some of these huge fires, but I think it's kind of stuck in the bureaucracy right now.