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Alberta fires: everybody ok?

prairiewindmomma

By prairiewindmomma,
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denarii

denarii

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2 hours ago, Arctic Bunny said:

Do they have livestock to sort out as well? That’s extra stressful, on top of losing feed!

My sister doesn't except for some cats (they grain farm) but her in-laws do and my uncle does. 

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prairiewindmomma

prairiewindmomma

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1 hour ago, MEmama said:

This article is about wildfires in Australia not Alberta, but this is fascinating. The feedback loop is a terrifying sign of what's to come.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/11/black-summer-bushfires-may-have-caused-rare-triple-dip-la-nina-study-suggests?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

For us here on the west coast in the US, a triple La Niña was a huge blessing. La Niña years are cooler and wetter for us. Had we had hotter and drier years we would have had even more burning than usual. 

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MEmama

MEmama

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4 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

For us here on the west coast in the US, a triple La Niña was a huge blessing. La Niña years are cooler and wetter for us. Had we had hotter and drier years we would have had even more burning than usual. 

True, except more rain= more vegetation= more fuel for fires, the feedback loop. The rain and snowpack were wonderful for filling reservoirs, not great for growing more stuff that can burn during the dry season. Ugh! 

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bolt.

bolt.

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A shift in winds has just brought thick smoke into my area of Alberta. The Air Quality Index is telling us it's "10+" meaning the scale wasn't designed to give information about this level of particulates. I just bought an air filter. The recommendation is to stay indoors as much as possible with doors and windows tightly sealed and hvac systems off or internally circulating only. Even indoors, we are limiting activity. We all have headaches.

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Starr

Starr

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1 minute ago, bolt. said:

A shift in winds has just brought thick smoke into my area of Alberta. The Air Quality Index is telling us it's "10+" meaning the scale wasn't designed to give information about this level of particulates. I just bought an air filter. The recommendation is to stay indoors as much as possible with doors and windows tightly sealed and hvac systems off or internally circulating only. Even indoors, we are limiting activity. We all have headaches.

That's awful! I'm so sorry. Can you get away for a bit or it just everywhere?

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bolt.

bolt.

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Just now, Starr said:

That's awful! I'm so sorry. Can you get away for a bit or it just everywhere?

There's no sense leaving the house, really, unless we could get quite far away. The indoor AQI is doing fine (our new air purifier says) so I think we will just hunker down. I should bake some bread, because I'm not bothering with the grocery store until I *really* need to.

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prairiewindmomma

prairiewindmomma

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1 hour ago, bolt. said:

A shift in winds has just brought thick smoke into my area of Alberta. The Air Quality Index is telling us it's "10+" meaning the scale wasn't designed to give information about this level of particulates. I just bought an air filter. The recommendation is to stay indoors as much as possible with doors and windows tightly sealed and hvac systems off or internally circulating only. Even indoors, we are limiting activity. We all have headaches.

bolt—we really struggled with headaches during last year’s fires. We were running HEPA filters in each room, but it wasn’t enough. We ended up building a corsi rosenthal box (4 filters and a box fan) and that did a lot to clean up our air. We have an IQ air monitor and we could watch the change after just 15 minutes.

If you can get out to buy 4 20x20 filters and a box fan and a roll of duct tape, I highly recommend it.

The filters turned brown after about 3 days, so buy extra filters if you can. Amazon didn’t do deliveries for us (they shut down to protect workers), but ordering through Home Depot still got stuff to our door after local stores ran out.

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wathe

wathe

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2 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

bolt—we really struggled with headaches during last year’s fires. We were running HEPA filters in each room, but it wasn’t enough. We ended up building a corsi rosenthal box (4 filters and a box fan) and that did a lot to clean up our air. We have an IQ air monitor and we could watch the change after just 15 minutes.

If you can get out to buy 4 20x20 filters and a box fan and a roll of duct tape, I highly recommend it.

The filters turned brown after about 3 days, so buy extra filters if you can. Amazon didn’t do deliveries for us (they shut down to protect workers), but ordering through Home Depot still got stuff to our door after local stores ran out.

Seconding CR boxes.  We've built lots of these.

@bolt. If 16x25 inch filters are easier to source (they are in my area), you can use those too; results in a taller, thinner box.  The filtration area 4x25x16 is the same as 4x20x20 .  You'd need to add a second cardboard shroud under the fan to fill the gap.    My local costco sells 16x25 inch high-filtration Kirkland brand filters in convenient 4 packs, at a decent price (were $37.99 locally in the fall, on  line price now higher).  20-inch box fans are $30 at Canadian Tire or Home Hardware.  You can build the whole thing for well under $100, including the cost of tape and GST.  

Website with everything you could ever want to know about Corsi-Rosenthal boxes.

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Arctic Bunny

Arctic Bunny

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On 5/16/2023 at 11:55 AM, bolt. said:

A shift in winds has just brought thick smoke into my area of Alberta. The Air Quality Index is telling us it's "10+" meaning the scale wasn't designed to give information about this level of particulates. I just bought an air filter. The recommendation is to stay indoors as much as possible with doors and windows tightly sealed and hvac systems off or internally circulating only. Even indoors, we are limiting activity. We all have headaches.

We’re at 11 in SK today…

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bolt.

bolt.

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7 minutes ago, Arctic Bunny said:

We’re at 11 in SK today…

You have 11? How high does your scale go?

As for us, the air inside the house is at a good level (our air purifier has a sensor on it) so I don't think we need the filter-box fan approach. It's good that many of our Canadian houses are built for winter, because they seal well to keep the outdoor smoke from just flowing inside. My mom-in-law has a mobile home, and even winter-tight, it's not doing a great job with the smoke.

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Arctic Bunny

Arctic Bunny

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, bolt. said:

You have 11? How high does your scale go?

As for us, the air inside the house is at a good level (our air purifier has a sensor on it) so I don't think we need the filter-box fan approach. It's good that many of our Canadian houses are built for winter, because they seal well to keep the outdoor smoke from just flowing inside. My mom-in-law has a mobile home, and even winter-tight, it's not doing a great job with the smoke.

I don’t know now! We’re always a 1 whenever I accidentally click there, lol!

 

ETA: After looking, I think that on the watch weather app, it reads 11 instead of 10+? 

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bolt.

bolt.

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24 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Are you guys aware of this website? https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=42.795455354027744&lng=-122.17885965730794&zoom=07
 

Seeing the smoke layers and flow patterns has been helpful for us.

Thanks! That's really helpful. We have plans to visit friends a bit north of us, and this tells me that their smoke level is considerably lower than ours. Good to know!

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kbutton

kbutton

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19 minutes ago, denarii said:

Yellowknife just issued an evacuation order 20,000 people. The closest city with capacity is Grande Prairie which is 1200km away. Most evacuees will be heading to Edmonton or Calgary. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66526554

It says the roads out of town had been closed due to fire, but it’s stalled for the moment. Sounds like it was almost a complete tragedy and is now terrifying but not as bad. Crazy! 

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denarii

denarii

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2 minutes ago, kbutton said:

It says the roads out of town had been closed due to fire, but it’s stalled for the moment. Sounds like it was almost a complete tragedy and is now terrifying but not as bad. Crazy! 

Hay River has been evacuated twice this year alone. Enterprise is gone 😥. If my math is right about 70% of the NWT is under evacuation order. 

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