Firefighting planes (Guardian Unlimited gallery)

[ChrisGreaves]

Alberta, Canada: Firefighting planes pick up water to douse a 3,000 hectare wildfire near Opal
First time I've seen a photo of four-on-the-go.

[steveh]

Hi Chris

Nice find, strange isn't it though how one doesn't think of Canada as having forest fire's, I guess it is because of the perceptions of Canada having one giant snow blanket due to TV etc.

[ChrisGreaves]

... Canada having one giant snow blanket ...

Hi Steve. Quite so.
It's as weird as expecting Australia to have a 6.5Km SkiTube train tunnel to get to the ski slopes.
I like to think that I had a good education in Australia - both as a high-school kid, and later on harvesting wheat during summer vacations.
Canada impressed me no end because I knew they grew lots of wheat, like us, but also knew that they had lots of snow.
My teenage mind, no doubt preoccupied with other matters, considered that Canadians must be genii (John Gray Alert) to have developed headers that could move through a field of ripe wheat covered with a 18" blanket of snow, and snip the heads of wheat and capture them in the split-seconds before the 18" of snow collapsed on to the mechanism!

Today, of course, I know better.

Canadians aren't genii .....

[HansV]

Canadians aren't genii .....

But some Canadians are Webgenii, or at least one of them is...

[ChrisGreaves]

Canadians aren't genii .....

But some Canadians are Webgenii, or at least one of them is...

(Where is John Gray when we need him ...) Surely if there is only ONE of the specii it ought to be a Webgenius

[PaulB]

Hi Chris

Nice find, strange isn't it though how one doesn't think of Canada as having forest fire's, I guess it is because of the perceptions of Canada having one giant snow blanket due to TV etc.

It's an image (standing knee-deep in snow, shivering in our parkas while feasting on whale blubber) that we take great pains to perpetuate. Keeps the yobs away.

According to Natural Resources Canada, "about 8,500 forest fires are reported each year in Canada, burning an area of 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres)." Over $400 million is spent fighting Canadian wildfires each year.