2016 Alberta Wildfires Case Study Flashcards
What fuelled these particular wildfires?
Weather Conditions: The province’s particularly grim fire season this year, with over 400 wildfires burning more than 122,000 hectares of land and displacing around 30,000 people, is mostly due to weather conditions. Alberta is growing warmer and drier under climate change, creating an ideal stomping ground for wildfires. As temperatures rise, the risk of fires increases.
Human Activity: While climate change doesn’t literally start the fires, human activities play a significant role. Wildfires generally start either due to lightning or human actions, such as someone flicking a cigarette butt into dry grass. In Alberta, the five-year average shows that 68% of fires were caused by humans, and 32% by lightning. Although the number of human-caused fires has been decreasing, climate change may still impact the severity of storms, leading to more lightning strikes1.
El Niño Transition: This year, the world is transitioning from a La Niña (cold) to an El Niño (warm) climate pattern. El Niño is believed to have contributed to the hotter conditions in Alberta, which can exacerbate wildfires. However, it’s a mixed bag, as it could mean both more precipitation (reducing dry fuel) and more lightning strikes.
What was the total economic cost of the damage?
Estimated total $9 billion in damage
Where is Alberta located?
In the West of Canada
How many homes and buildings were burnt down?
Roughly 2400
What are the effects on the forest area?
The Fort McMurray area is mixed boreal forest with aspen, spruce and a lot of peatlands and normally quite wet. It’s been very dry in recent years and the fire was so intense the soil is likely scorched, tree roots burned. It will take longer to recover and probably with a different mix of species.
What are the effects of this wildfire upon climate change?
The fire will have resulted in a few million tonnes of CO2 emitted. That compares to Alberta’s 274m tonnes in 2014 — the majority of which is from the province’s energy sector. CO2 emissions from the fire are not expected to be significant on a global scale “unless a lot of peat burned,” said Dr Mike Flannigan, professor of renewable resources at the University of Alberta.
What are the effects on air pollution?
There’s a lot of stuff like housing shingles, cars, couches and so on that produce a wide range of toxins including mercury, lead and organic compounds.
People in Fort McMurray at the height of the fire were likely “breathing lungful’s of toxins”``
The smoke from the fires has travelled across the US to the Gulf coast, 3,400 km away. Fires are a known hazard mainly because small particles can damage lungs. However little is known how the release of contaminants in fires might play into human health impacts
What are the impacts on Canada’s GDP?
The estimated impact on their GDP due to the wildfire was -0.4%.
What was the scale of this disaster for Canada? How does it rank compared to other Canadian natural disasters?
It was the worst natural disaster in Canada’s history. By far the worst economically, socially and environmentally.
