impact and human responses as evidenced by a recent wildfire event

Question 1

what is the case study of a recent wildfire event?

Answer 1

The Alberta Wildfire (‘The beast’) 2016, Western Canada

Question 2

How long did the wildfire last?

Answer 2

over 2 months (May-July)

Question 3

Alberta wildfire was the _______ natural disaster in Canadian history

Answer 3

costliest

Question 4

what were some social impacts?

Answer 4

• 0 deaths or injuries
• over 2000 homes destroyed
• people couldn’t return until Spring 2017

Question 5

what were some economic impacts?

Answer 5

• Alberta was the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history
• almost 10 billion dollars of damage to Fort McMurray
• 25 000 had to be evacuated from the tar sands industry. 51% of the labour force in Fort McMurray were employed in the oil and gas industry
• Thousands of hectares of forest destroyed and a huge number of Athabasca oil sands = huge economic impact. 1.2 million barrels of oil were lost per day for 14 days
• GDP of Alberta dropped to a negative value
• Global price of oil effected

Question 6

what were some environmental impacts?

Answer 6

• hundreds of thousands ha of land was burned
• millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere
• a positive feedback loop was created when the fire created its own weather patterns, triggering lightning which ignited new fires
• untreated water was used by firefighters to control the blaze. This lead to further water contamination

Question 7

what were some short-term human responses?

Answer 7

• government declared a state of emergency and implemented emergency operations
• 2 days into the fire a huge evacuation was ordered
• news coverage and social media were used to good effect to update residents
• shelters and food were offered to evacuees to meet their basic needs
• Professional firefighters and first responders stayed behind to fight the fire. Offers of help were received from the USA, Australia and Russia. 85% of the city of Fort McMurray was saved

Question 8

what were some long-term human responses?

Answer 8

• Re-entry programme was implemented by the government. This commenced in June 2016 and continued well into spring 2017
• Evacuees given $1250 for adults and $500 for dependants by the government. This was to help cover living expenses
• Businesses played an important role in the recovery and clear up. Canadian Red cross (NGO) provided a grans to small businesses to encourage local contractors back into work. ‘Buy local’ campaigns introduced
• The government has increased investment in the mitigation of natural disasters. 3 programmes have been designed: Disaster preparedness, FireSmart and Flood mitigation. The success of these schemes is yet to be seen