Front Burner - Hotter, faster, more destructive: wildfire’s new reality

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Albertans are suffering an unprecedented wildfire season. Tens of thousands have been evacuated out of the path of massive blazes. Across the province, skies are smoky and air quality is poor. Author John Vaillant is watching it unfold with a terrifying comprehension of the science of these super fires and just how dangerous they can be. He has spent years investigating what happened in 2016 when parts of Fort McMurray burned to the ground. His new book, ‘Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast,’ explains why the fires we battle today are hotter, faster and more destructive than the fires of before. He joins Alex Panetta for a conversation about the future of fire in our changing climate. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Alex Panetta. It's happening again. Alberta is suffering through what's being called yet another unprecedented fire season. Of the 90 wildfires burning in Alberta, about two dozen are out of control. There are 15 mandatory evacuation orders.

15 mandatory evacuation orders. More than 17,000 people currently forced from their homes and some will not have homes to go back to. Already parts of communities have burned. I called it the devil because this fire like was crazy. Extreme weather is smashing records across the north and the west. Low humidity, high temperature, a little bit of wind, and everything wants to burn. Official firefighters and unofficial firefighters, like ranchers, farmers, homeowners, they're gearing up for a tough battle. Our peak burning period,

which is when the temperatures are at their highest and the fuels are at their driest, is still in front of us. I think we all better just park at home as long as we can and fight it. I think we're in for a long battle. Well, with 100 new fire starts, no fire management agency can deal with that many fire starts all at once. John Valiant's new book is arriving at an appropriate time. Fire Weather is an epic investigation into the Fort McMurray fire of 2016, Canada's costliest so-called natural disaster. He's been watching this latest

disaster ignite with a terrifying comprehension of how the science of forest fires has changed, how the fires we fight today are not the fires of the past. Hi there, John. Greetings. Hi there. Okay, so I want to start right there and ask, how are the fires we see today so different from the ones of the past? Well, we've increased the amount of industrial CO2 in our atmosphere by 50% over pre-industrial levels. And when you increase anything by 50%, you're going to see some dramatic changes. And so what we're seeing in our atmosphere is the enhanced heat retention capability. So it's warmer and everybody in Western Canada is really feeling that right now under this heat dome. And when you have warmer air, it absorbs water better. You have more

evaporation. So May is already naturally a dry, fire-prone time of year for the Canadian West. And now it's being enhanced, really supercharged, if you will, by this added CO2 and the added heat that comes with it. And when you have 12% relative humidity, you know, we're getting into Death Valley, Southern California territory here, and you've got 33 Celsius, you have what amount to explosive fire conditions. Can you talk to me more about this explosive force, this phenomenon on steroids, as you say? What does it do differently? Can you describe it to me? You know, what amazed people from wildfire experts to regular citizens in Fort McMurray on May 3rd was how fast the fire moved. They got up in the morning, blue sky overhead, just a pristine Alberta day. By noon, there was this massive black curtain heading toward town. By 1.30, whole neighborhoods were exploding into flame. And over and over again, I spoke with people who talked about the experience

almost like a switch going on. And the fire wasn't there, and then it was there. And watching it move through the forest, every ember, of which there were literally millions, was able to ignite because the ground was so dry. And then the wind, you know, enhanced and intensified by the heat of the fire caused those little ember fires to spread and grow and move incredibly rapidly. And I think that was what really shocked people was the speed of the fire across the landscape and through the neighborhoods. And so really the effect was almost as if you had sprayed down the forest with gasoline and then lit it on fire. Like a bomb.

Like a bomb. You've mentioned Western Canada a couple of times, which has me thinking of BC, California, Alberta. Climate change is happening everywhere. It's happening in Eastern Canada, too. So why is this sort of cataclysm happening so frequently, specifically in the West? What is it about the West? The West is naturally fire-prone. There are entire forest systems here with keystone species, black spruce, lodgepole pine, for example, who actually need fire in order to regenerate. So

the cones that they drop, the pine cones, the spruce cones, will not open and release their seeds unless they are heated to temperatures greater than that provided by sunlight alone. So they really, it's a fire dependent ecosystem. So, you know, we really need to be able to hold the idea that big fires are normal and natural in the North American West, all the way up to Alaska. But what's different now is the intensity. And with the greater heat, you have a hotter fire that actually does deep, can do really deep damage to soils and can basically cauterize the ground. And obviously, it is extremely dangerous for settlements that find themselves in the way of these fires.

And adding to that flammability are the ingredients of the modern house, which are petroleum-based to an alarming degree. In furniture and in housing. Furniture, stuffing, paints, seals, roofing, vinyl siding. Firefighters call vinyl siding solidified gasoline. And these massive phenomena are due to these tiny deceptive shifts in global temperatures, right? We only have these like minor, seemingly minor changes in world temperatures, a degree Celsius, a degree and a half Celsius. How do these seemingly small shifts in the climate produce such massive changes in terms of the effect on the ecosystem? I'm really glad you asked that because it's really hard for us to imagine, but it's easy when we personalize it. So our normal

body temperature is, you know, around 37 Celsius. That's a healthy person, but that's, you know, around 37 Celsius, that's a healthy person, but that's, you know, that's, that's a lot of heat, you know, in our body. Increase that to 39 Celsius, not very much, but we feel terrible. We go to bed, we cannot function. Increase that to 41 Celsius, we're in the hospital on the edge of death. And another way to think about it is the temperature of freezing versus liquid. You got zero. That's freezing. Plus one, just one Celsius will turn that solid into a liquid. And these thresholds impact fire also. So if you take the average temperature in northern Alberta right now, which might be, I don't know, around 10 Celsius, maybe 12 Celsius, and stick to 30,

just think, you know, you've got a fever, you've got a fever on your hands. And metaphorically speaking, you know, that forest is going to the hospital if it catches on fire. And unfortunately, you know, we're all really vulnerable to that too. Well, I want to ask you about northern Alberta. You know, you focus on this area, on the 2016 wildfire that burned through Fort McMurray. That area of Northern Alberta, the boreal forest has small trees. It's got boggy land, tons of bugs, but it's surprisingly important in climate terms. Can you talk to me about why it's such a crucial landscape? Yeah, the boreal forest system is the largest forest system on Earth. It's really called the circumboreal. It goes all the way around the northern hemisphere. It's a huge, important, influential system on our planet. It's also the wettest biome on Earth. It's

wetter even than the tropical jungle. So there are more sources of fresh water moving through it than anywhere else. You've got rivers and creeks and bogs and massive, really inland sea-sized lakes. There's a tremendous amount of water there. But again, when you heat up an atmosphere, when you heat up any environment, it's going to evaporate. All these systems that hold so much water are losing tremendous amounts of moisture every day. And under a heat dome like this, that's only accelerated. So this ecosystem holds so much carbon. One of the fascinating things you described in the book is the necessity of fire to this ecosystem. I love the line where you

describe the boreal forest as a phoenix among ecosystems, that it's born in fire, that it needs fire. Can you talk to me about what it normally needs? Why is fire usually good for this ecosystem? Well, fire in the boreal occurs in a random way, but when you're looking at it decadally, it occurs in a regular way. So basically, if you're a tree in the boreal, you can expect to be burned, to be in a fire somewhere between every 50 to 150 years. These are not long-lived trees. And they burn regularly. And what that does is it clears the ground, the sky is open, and that gives the signal to these fire-opened seeds that, okay, I've got a space for myself now to germinate, and the conditions are good. And, you know, so after a

normal fire, there's rapid regrowth and there's all kinds of berry bushes and underbrush that thrives in that. And, you know, something that's really worth exploring more is the First Nations role in seasonal burning. And it really was a kind of land and forest management that went on for millennia and was in fact interrupted by smallpox epidemics and other massive colonial intrusions. Basically, it's spring cleaning with fire, and that would have enormous benefits for reducing explosive fuel loads and, you know, priming the ground for fresh growth. So, you know, fire is almost in a yin-yang kind of way a necessary part of our natural world.

But, you know, leading to the 2016 Fort McMurray fire, you know, there were signs that this particular beast was not something that would have been the traditional fire, that this is different from what had come before. What were these signs? There were several. One of them was a century of incredibly effective fire suppression. And, you know, nobody likes to smoke. Ask anybody in Calgary right now, they're having a really tough time, literally as we speak. And, you know, nobody likes to smoke. Ask anybody in Calgary right now, they're having a really tough time, literally as we speak. So you have this supercharged forest that hasn't been burned in a century. And then you have this unseasonal heat. Then we also have

an El Nino, which has a heating effect that even though it's in the Pacific Ocean, influences snowfall and precipitation in general all the way into Alberta. So then you have this particular time of year called the spring dip, when trees haven't leafed out yet, and the ground hasn't fully thawed yet and the sun is able to come right into the forest through the leafless trees and dry out the forest floor. So everything's primed for fire. And that's really where we are pretty much right now in Northwestern Canada. So this combination of things plus the intensification of co2 in our atmosphere has created a superheating and super flammable uh environment in which fire can behave explosively well in the face of that uh that beast

i mean is there anything that people could have done, anything at all, to stop this or to prepare better for what happened? You know, what's really frightening to consider is, obviously, in Australia, wildfires are a real issue and have been forever. You know, that's another environment that burns regularly and with great intensity. They've had to change their fire danger ratings from high and extreme to catastrophic. And the advice under catastrophic conditions is for your survival, leaving early is the only option. And that is a danger rating that we need to consider in Canada. And in February, on May 1st and 2nd, 2016, the writing was on the wall. Any experienced boreal fire scientist could see from the dryness, from the heat, from the excellent forecast, and from the

projected wind shift, which was directly into the city, all of this went like clockwork. All of this was known. And without an absolute, you know, massive fleet of water bombers maybe you could have stopped it uh probably on may 1st there might have been an opportunity but i think again we we cannot underestimate how dry and fire primed that environment was and therefore really the best thing to do is what many communities are doing now in northern alberta but also in s Saskatchewan and B.C. Again, literally as we speak together right now, they are evacuating and evacuating saves lives, but it also reduces trauma. And that's another factor. going through those flames, trying to keep your children safe, really legitimately wondering if you're going to see tomorrow because you might be burned alive in your car.

Those are terrors that are avoidable. And we owe it to ourselves and our citizenry to protect them from that whenever possible. connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. So that's the before picture. I want to talk to you about the after picture. How did the damage to homes and cars in Fort McMurray compare to the type of damage caused by old-fashioned wildfires? I think your book talks about piles of nails.

Can you talk to me a little bit about the damage caused by these fires? This is another aspect that really surprised people. You know, in a normal forest fire, in a normal house fire, you know, we've all seen them. There's a lot of the house left. You know, honestly, the water from the fire hoses does more damage to the house often than the fire does. Fort McMurray was different.

Every single thing burned to the point that there was nothing left but ash. And I interviewed a number of firefighters, and they were describing to me these burn times that just didn't sound plausible. And they said, oh, yeah, it was about five minutes for a house to burn down. And these are substantial houses. These are two-story, very expensive constructions, modern, state-of-the-art, you know, really nice middle-class homes. And when I pressed these firefighters, you know, what are you talking about five minutes? And they all said, this is, you know, separate interviews, they said, from a house fully there to fully gone was five minutes. These houses didn't catch on fire so much as burst into flame in their entirety.

So everything caught on fire at once. Everything combusted at once. So you have a synthetic sofa. synthetic sofa, instead of that catching on fire, it would explode into flame because the petroleum products would volatilize instantly and ignite. I saw a photograph of a lamppost, you know, a big steel lamppost that just folded over in the heat. And, you know, there, I was talking to another person who said, yeah, even toilets and sinks disappeared. And I was talking to another person who said, yeah, even toilets and sinks disappeared. And these are ceramics.

They are made in a kiln. They're made by intense heat. And it was so hot that they just basically vaporized. And this is new. I want to ask you about the community now. You draw the link very explicitly in your book between burning fossil fuels and the difficulty in controlling wildfires. Do people in Fort McMurray see that connection? And how do they react when you make that connection?

Yeah, that's a really tricky topic in Alberta. The petroleum industry is a sacred cow. And it has enabled a lot of people from around the country and even around the world to enjoy lifestyles unimaginable in their home communities. So there is real gratitude for those jobs and for that industry. And there is a tension there because the byproducts of that industry that all of us benefit from, that all of us in our way capitalize on, is extremely destructive to our environment, to our atmosphere, and really to our future. So this is a reckoning that is going to be difficult for Canada, but necessary for Canada to confront. And there is a kind of ironic cruelty that many of the people who have benefited most from these terrific jobs are now suffering the most. suffering the most. And I interviewed a lot of people in Fort McMurray, and I've checked in with them since the post-fire interviews, and all of their lives are different now. They've either left Fort McMurray, some of them have PTSD, some of them have health issues that will persist to

the end of their days. Some of them have lost faith in entities and organizations that they used to believe in and trust. These fires do tremendous damage, and it's a lingering damage. Well, I've heard you describe the generosity and kindness with which people received you there. I'm just wondering, did people get upset when you started talking about climate change and the destructiveness of fossil fuel extraction? You know, I didn't discuss that with them. I was sitting down with them, and we were talking about really the worst day in many of their lives. And to talk about climate change at that time felt inappropriate to me.

And I also know, you know, it's frankly a radioactive topic there. And I will say none of them brought up climate change. None of them brought up CO2 in the atmosphere. So it's really not on the radar for them. co2 in the atmosphere so it's really not on the radar for them and um that's um that's how that's what my experience was there so I want to talk about what's next and how we learn to live in this world where this becomes a frequent occurrence. Can you talk to me about how we fight these fires in the future? Can we?

What's hard to or us to imagine because we were born in it and raised in it, is that we're actually in the middle of a really quite a brief experiment with a fossil fuel powered economy and civilization. You know, it's really quite new. It's only about seven generations old. Many of us have grandparents and great grandparents who traveled around, you know, on horseback. A lot of people in Alberta do. And the other thing that's new is this propensity to build our homes in the forest. People learned the hard way a couple hundred years ago that when you build your house in the forest, it will often burn down. We have been drawn back into the forest, And we're living in these sweet spots where you've got a

cul-de-sac out front where your kids can ride their scooter and you got a running trail, you know, for mom out the back. And it's great, but it's super flammable. And the other piece of this that we really need to come to grips with is the forest we thought we lived in, especially in Western Canada, is no longer the same forest. It behaves differently now. And we have to build and think and prepare accordingly. I'm wondering whether the insurance industry is going to behave differently as well. Absolutely. The insurance company is a wonderful source of information because they are nonpartisan. They are really simply looking at the data. And that's going to change who they're willing to insure, what they're willing to insure, and where they're willing to insure. And I have friends down in the American Southwest who are prosperous, well-educated people who bought the house of their dreams in the mountains outside of Santa Fe only to find out that they could not get fire insurance for it.

That's new. The world is more flammable. So your work is focused on the relationship between humans and the natural world. I mean, you live in Vancouver, and I'm guessing you care deeply about clean air and big, healthy cedars. I want to ask about the mental toll on you. What's the effect of seeing these heat domes and smoky skies and and beast-like fires i mean of watching the climate change in real time it's really painful um i i don't know if you know what a glory hole is it's that that hole in the in the blast furnace where the glass blower sticks the glass to heat it up and it's this fiery circle that you really

can't get near and for the past seven years as i worked on this book i felt like i was just staring into that and not just in fort mcmurray but in other parts of the world that are burning more intensely than they ever have i I had the really strange privilege, if you will, to go to Redding, California after the fire tornado there. And there are photographs in the book of the damage it did, and it looks post-nuclear. It was destruction on a scale of an intensity of a totality that I simply couldn't imagine and it's a really shocking thing to witness and not many people have seen it yet and so this book is a warning it really is a public service announcement in a way that my other books were not

and it doesn't seem like there's an immediate off ramp i mean we're not about to stop burning fossil fuels and even if we did scientists say what we've already burned means we're committed to at least another degree of warming worldwide so how bad is it going to get how bad our fire season is going to be in the future well i wanted to address the first thing you said there about reducing our use of fossil fuels. That is happening right now in real time. So I'm quite confident that fossil fuel use is peaking globally as we speak. And we're going to see a steady decrease in the coming years and decades. That said, we've locked in a certain amount of heating we've basically supercharged the

atmosphere with co2 and so we can think of it as a giant battery and it's got a lot of energy in it right now that is going to keep heating for decades so fires are going to get worse. So in a way, in a negative way, we've paid it forward. But by reducing the amount of methane we release into the atmosphere, by reducing the amount of CO2 we release into the atmosphere, we will also be investing in a more stable, cooler future. But it may not be a future that we see. Our kids might see it, their grandkids might see it, but massive changes are in store for us. And, you know, that's a really difficult aspect of climate change is we're seeing things, we're going to experience things that no one's experienced before. No one's ever experienced a fire tornado.

I'm not talking about a fire whirl. I'm talking about an EF3 tornado that blew houses away and burned everything that was left behind. So no one's seen that before, Australia 2003, and then Redding, California 2018. But we're're going to see more of them and we're going to see more high-intensity fire. So we need to act and build and evacuate accordingly at the same time that we reduce our emissions as rapidly as possible. And we are a sophisticated, intelligent species who's capable of doing several things at once. And those are a couple of things we need to do at once. I guess we'll end right there on what passes for a high note in this conversation, because it's a tough one.

And I really appreciate you taking the time to chronicle it and for talking to us today. Oh, I'm really pleased to be on Front Burner. Thank you so much. That's all for today. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner, everyone, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.