Northwestern Ontario has had over 400 new fire starts in 4 days with more hot and dry weather in the forecast and more starts predicted. We presently have 19 heavy scoopers based in the Northwest Region with 10 based in Dryden as of last night. There are numerous fires that haven't even been attacked yet so if you want to smell some smoke this is the place to be.

Everyone flying in the area please keep a heads up and be careful as we have numerous out of province Tanker Packages heading in various directions at various altitudes.

Bring on the rains or this is going to be an awful long fall.

If we don't get some rain soon I'm going postal on mothernatures ass!

Hey hey, are these fires going on right now? That's weird. August was so quiet and september gets fires?

These fires are going on right now! 420 fires in 5 days.

I have been flying around them for the past week, and with a wind shift last night it REALLY cleared the air up in my neck of the woods... it's been a hard time flying to some of the most local places and i'm glad that i know the area VERY well, the smoke even 40 miles north of the big fires was pushing us down to vfr minima and sometimes we couldn't even get flying... i'm realatively new to the whole bush world, but what i have seen in the past week has astonished me! LOTS of fire and TONS of smoke! Rumor has it that a few of the comunities have been partially evacuated (Deer, North Spirit, Keewaywin and Sandy mainly) and what not... i'm not going to repeat false facts so don't quote me on it!
Keep on working at her boys! Good luck and Fly safe out there!

More thunder storms up in the north here tonight, not much for rain, they'll be more a starting tomorrow too!

heard that MNR lost most (up to 80%?) of it's fire fighters because they went back to school...if it's true, how are they dealing with the shortage? what's happening on the ground after you boys (and girls) get done bombing?

There are still contract crews altho they are usually used for mop up and not IA situations. Been some colder rainy weather in BC so maybe some crews will be sent that way but there are still some biggies here too.

Babel Fish wrote:

heard that MNR lost most (up to 80%?) of it's fire fighters because they went back to school...if it's true, how are they dealing with the shortage? what's happening on the ground after you boys (and girls) get done bombing?

Very true, resources on the ground are very scarce. Basically we are doing the ol' splash and dash with the Tankers. Knock it down and move on to the next one. When the previous one flares up again, we just give it another whack while we are looking westward for the rain clouds!!

Its partly the MNR's fault for selecting so many students. I know from the interview process in BC they like students because they dont mind getting laid off in the fall and there is a decent chance they'll be around for a few seasons. However that policy is biting them in the ass now and people like me who tried for years (after working for a contract crew) aren't available anymore.

scubasteve wrote:Its partly the MNR's fault for selecting so many students. I know from the interview process in BC they like students because they dont mind getting laid off in the fall and there is a decent chance they'll be around for a few seasons. However that policy is biting them in the ass now and people like me who tried for years (after working for a contract crew) aren't available anymore.

A retired guy they brought back for this fire flap proposed we follow the Yankee example and get convicts to do the dirty work.
Sounds good on the surface but when they real honest hard working professional firefighters in the US ask for a raise they're told to suck shyt ..."we'll just get more convicts." The last thing we need to do in this country is follow the US example of nickle and diming the forest services.

There are lots of trained native crews in the northern communities they could call on if they wanted. I'm sure Walstens would be more than happy to fly them down to Thunder Bay and Dryden.

I was flying air tankers before some of you were born.

What these fires need is Driving Rain.

Wow, all of those out-of-provincers flying around Northwest Ontario at low level and poor vis - I wonder if they've got the 126.7/122.8 BS sorted out yet?

Yep, they have it all sorted out. They are flying around monitoring 26.7 the way the rules state.

Hey Guys. Does anyone know of who i should contact within the ministry in YQT of getting hired on. Just finished my float stint in N. Man and finished early. I got the Heli exit training, the SP-100 and the prefit all done in the early spring. Any help woulds be great. Thx

CGZMT check your PM's.

CL, check yours!

The rains have finally arrived! Now it's time to focus on moose hunting!

I told you, I told you, it would take Driving Rain to put em out...

Cat Driver wrote:I was flying air tankers before some of you were born.

I guess that puts them a little bit further along in evolution than yourself.