Tag Archives: WIldfire smoke

Cost of Climate Change, Fire, Health

Wildfire Smoke Is Making Us Sick

By Michelle Gamage, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

It’s early June and there are 80 wildfires burning in the province, according to the BC Wildfire Service dashboard. 

There are evacuation orders in place for areas of the Peace River Regional District, and localities close to significant fires are blanketed in smoke.  

Fires are also bringing hazy skies to  Vancouver and other areas of the province farther away from active  fires. Across the continent, smoke is coating Toronto and New York right now. 

While smoky days and even weeks might be a  regular feature of future Canadian summers, they’re not something we  should be complacent with, according to health experts. 

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Cost of Climate Change, Fire, Health

Wildfires affect air quality, impacting schools on Vancouver Island

By Melissa Renwick, Ha-Shilth-Sa, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As the heat of the summer extends into October there has been a prolonged forest fire season. As of Oct. 18, the province has 201 active fires with six having started in the previous two days.

Though two of the four fires in the Port Alberni area are no longer burning, four in Strathcona, and four between Gold River and Zeballos remain.

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Environment

Weird West Coast weather: panic globally, Act locally

qathet Living, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Growing up, no one Anastasia Lukyanova knew drove a car. They didn’t need to. Her family lived in a sixth-floor apartment in a ten-floor highrise, in Ufa, Russia – a dense, mid-sized city of about a million, sandwiched between two rivers

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Disaster

Owen Bay Fire on Sonora Island ‘under control’

CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

The Owen Bay Fire, on the Southern tip of Sonora Island, is now under control.

It was first reported about 4 p.m. on Thursday. By the time the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) issued a wildfire evacuation alert for the 30 or so residences south of Hyacinth and Dorr Lakes, at 11:45 PM, the fire had grown to two hectares. BC Wildfire Service reported that at least one structure was involved.

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Cost of Climate Change, Fire

Wildfire smoke clouding the skies

CKTZ News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The air quality and visibility over the weekend was noticeably affected by particulates in forest fire smoke traveling across the landscape, and will likely be present in the region into Wednesday afternoon.

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