B Flat

Today is beautiful. Warm (26°C/79°F), with clear sunny skies, until you look to the west/southwest, that is. Then your eyes behold a beautiful big cloud front, which upon closer inspection you realize is actually a smoke front. That’s right—another post that talks about smoke and fire. But not dust and ash.

Today a source-who-must-not-be-named mentioned whilst in my shop that the Basset Fire (140,000+ hectares) has been travelling again. North, to Alaska. Well, not quite that far, but it is going north to the highway along which there happens to be a power line. This line supplies two communities to the west of us—one indigenous settlement (Chateh) and one oilfield settlement (Rainbow Lake). The closer community (Chateh) has been evacuated twice this year: once in spring due to flooding and once again in mid-summer due to fires. Now they may lose power. Honestly, they’ve been evacuated for at least a few days every year since 2018. They are, dare I say, powerless in the face of nature. What an exciting place to live.

As of 3:00 this afternoon Alberta Transportation closed the highway from our town to Chateh, as the conditions are smoky and sparky. the power company has been trying to protect and fire guard the power poles as much as possible to keep them from becoming powerless. I guess we’ll see if that works.

One of our guests from Yellowknife said the “bright idea” of fiberglass power poles is all great and wonderful until you have a fire nearby and the poles get hot. Then they just droop over and bow to the great and fervent heat and attempt to touch their toes. Wooden ones either withstand the heat and just turn black or powerlessly burn and dangle. Unless too many burn. Then they dangle no more but collapse unceremoniously in smoldering heaps.

The main transmission line to the rest of our county seems to be in luck. The fire is 44km to the north and the prevailing winds are blowing the fire away from the line. We may be powerless in some areas of life, but when it comes to electricity we aren’t powerless as of yet.