New barn fire prevention tool
Equine Guelph has launched a new online tool as a resource for horse owners. The Barn Fire Prevention tool is easy to use and provides horse owners with interactive assessments for their individual facilities.
Fire safety chemicals threaten public health
A number of associations have warned the use of chemical flame retardants in furniture to improve fire safety can have severe negative impacts on public health.
Ottawa stopped counting fires on First Nation reserves in 2010
Conservate M.P. and former firefighter John Brassard asked for the number of fires that occurred on First Nation reserves in the past decade. His answer included numbers only up to 2010, when Indigenous Affairs stopped collecting the data.
Fire Chief advocates for municipal sprinkler regulation
Pitt Meadows Fire Chief Don Jolley, vice-president of the Fire Chiefs Associaiton of BC, hopes a new regulation associated with BC’s Building Act will encourage local governments to make sprinklers mandatory in new homes.
Unclear Tweet causes panic during wildfires
When a wildfire in northern British Columbia grew large enough to threaten people and property Emergency Info BC tweeted a link to information about evacuation alerts and orders in Fort St. John. The problem with that was, the evacuation alerts weren’t in Fort St. John and panic ensued.
September in Fire History – The Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London broke out in the early morning hours of September 2, 1666. By the time the flames were extinguished, four days later, 13,200 homes in 400 streets had been burned or demolished to create firebreaks, with 70,000 to 80,000 people made homeless. Eighty-six of the City’s 109 churches were either badly damaged or destroyed. Surprisingly, only six fatalities were recorded.
Boeing patents giant bullet to shoot down wildfires
Boeing has been awarded a patent for an artillery shell “designed to either detonate in front of a wildfire, spreading retardant materials on the ground to prevent the fire from progressing, or to detonate directly above it, dampening the flames.” This method of firefighting is controversial, with wildland fire experts suggesting it won’t work.
The lonely lives of the last remaining forest fire lookouts
They call them “Freaks on the Peaks”. A few years ago thousands of people spent their summers on mountaintops, living in remote lookout towers and scanning the surrounding wilderness for signs of smoke. Now only a few hundred remain.
Learning from the Ft. McMurray wildfire disaster – preliminary report released
A preliminary report entitled “Why some homes survived: Learning from the Fort McMurray wildfire disaster”, written by Alan Westhaver, M.Sc and published by the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, has been released. In the report the author explores the reasons why some homes survived the massive wildfire while many others were destroyed.
- here to read the report.
New form of fire, inspired by bourbon, might help with oil spills
Fire whirls, commonly known as firenadoes, look like tornadoes and burn hotter than many other fires. Scientists from the University of Maryland conducted experiments on fire whirls because they thought there was a possibility that their power could be harnessed for good. The research was prompted by a video of flaming bourbon.