haresfur wrote: 
It is all good.  It is all appreciated.   When push comes to shove, we'll send soldiers.  Hopefully the Aussies will do the same. Who knows?  Maybe the Commonwealth will outlast NATO.....

The trouble is that by the time most of the out-of-province helpers get here, the main fires will already be contained or burned out.  Then there is always beer, BC bud and good times had by all.    

B.C. wildfires: Before-and-after satellite images show trail of destruction

Drove to Kamloops yesterday.  Road blocks came off the day before.  There are a number of scorched hillsides.  A heavy rain yesterday evening probably put a lot of black ash in the Thompson River but that is temporary.  By next spring, most of the countryside should be greened up.  

Scary stuff.

Australia is sending a token force of firefighters. And we appreciate it when you send firefighters the other way. Cross-training is a good thing, if nothing else.

 westslope wrote: 

By now I imagine the smallest news outlets in the USA have covered BC's wildfires in the interior of the province.

We went from a cold winter to a wet, cool spring to a hot dry summer and then it all started to burn up.  The Ashcroft fire that spread north through Cache Creek was apparently started by sparks from a CN freight train but I have yet to confirm that story.

The area is semi-arid country dominated by Big Mountain Sage brush.  The spring created more fuel, the hot summer dried it out and the gusting winds did the rest. 

 
There are lots of interesting stories in this drama.  

First story:  nobody has died.  I can think of more than a few countries in the world where people would have died.

Second story from our own village.  Folks feared looting so local people shadowed the two known crystal meth users.  Gotta love small towns!  

Third story:  Two First Nation communities in the Chilcotin defied evacuation orders and then deployed heavy machinery and fire-fighting skills to save buildings in their communities.  The RCMP apparently threatened to take away their children if they did not evacuate.

Huh?   Sometimes I cannot believe the clumsy naivete of the RCMP.  Have these officers no understanding of history in western Canada?  Does residential schools mean anything?  
 

The Boston Flats trailer park: