Just heard the Mars will be doing test flights and drops starting in the next 30 minutes (11AMish)
Update: 9:45AM
Air/Smoke Advisory lifted (only Comox Valley remains)
Unless something major occurs, I will be ending my frequent updates on the fire behaviour and will go back to a normal daily or somewhat less frequent posting schedule. Thank you all for reading and sending in your thoughts and especially pictures!
Controlled Burn a Success?
It seems as though the back burn was a success. Air Quality Advisories remain for the region but Air Quality this morning is excellent in the City. The 7AM graph is at zero.
Derek James posted these before/after pictures on Facebook.
The fire/burn at 10PM last night:
And this morning:
Great work by the firefighting crews and teams on what appears to have been a successful controlled burn. Lets hope this is the beginning of the end of this fire and we will not see any further activity from it. There will be some windy conditions today that may cause concern, but hopefully it will be fine.
A huge thank you to the men and women putting their lives on the line in this fire and all over the province and country.
She’s back
Photo by Jerry Feven – Facebook
What a wonderful sound that was. Lets hope as soon as all the testing is done and she’s officially got the green light, she gets sent to make quick work of the next fire in the region. I believe we can expect her in the sky again today. All the tools are back in the toolbox, thanks to Wayne Coulson and Minister Thomson and many others. I do hope that the 30 day contract will turn back into a long term commitment that will last until such time that the province can acquire modern aircraft of similar overwhelming capability. There is no question we will need it in the years to come. But until that time, there is no doubt in my mind of the quality and capability of the Martin Mars.
Definite Weather pattern change
There is no doubt about it, the forecasts all agree that the weather is changing today and it may stay changed for what will seem like quite a while after so many weeks of hot, sunny weather.
Speaking of which, despite the smoke, Port Alberni set another record yesterday at 32º C.
There will be no such records today with highs probably not reaching over 29ºC. There should be some wind this afternoon.
The weekend will feel cool, around 20º C and it we may get a shower around 2PM Saturday and before 8AM Sunday and maybe a bit more Monday evening but in all it will not be enough to make a significant difference.
The rest of next week looks variable and cool but no significant rainfall.
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