Tom Harris’ Post

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Climate Advocate & part-time Consultant trading as Hi Consulting

It's Canadian wildfire season again. There is one myth that needs to be busted though. It's often said that a very high proportion are due to arson, but according to the Alberta Government this is not true. The largest cause of wildfire is lightning strikes. This accounts for 80% of the 2023 burned area. The Government says 91 (out of 1,088) fires were caused by arson burning just 262 hectares (0.01% of the burned area). There are other human causes including power line strikes, BBQs, agricultural and residential fires. These tend to burn less area as they are normally close to fire services. The fires are already causing air pollution issues in the US. Story: https://lnkd.in/ee6yy4cZ YouTube fire update: https://lnkd.in/eUTjg_6s #wildfire #forestfire #airpollution #fireseason #climatechange

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Useful to know - thanks. There’s also the fact that once a forest has burned down it takes a good while until it regenerates enough to burn down again. (In my local area it seems to be about every 10 years). So when people say they’ve ‘not been worse than last year’ that is one reason why.

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