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Chinchaga fire
The Chinchaga fire, also known as the Wisp fire, Chinchaga River fire and Fire 19, was a forest fire that burned in northern British Columbia and Alberta in the summer and early fall of 1950. With a final size of between 1,400,000 and 1,700,000 hectares (3,500,000 and 4,200,000 acres; 5,400 and 6,600 sq mi), it is the single largest recorded fire in North American history. The authorities allowed the fire to burn freely, following local forest management policy considering the lack of settlements in the region. The Chinchaga fire produced large amounts of smoke, creating the "1950 Great Smoke Pall", observed across eastern North America and Europe. As the existence of the massive fire was not well-publicized, and the smoke was mostly in the upper atmosphere and could not be smelled, there was much speculation about the atmospheric haze and its provenance. The Chinchaga firestorm's "historic smoke pall" caused "observations of blue suns and moons in the United States and Europe". It was the biggest firestorm documented in North America, and created the world's largest smoke layer in the atmosphere.
The Chinchaga River region has a mix of black spruce, lodgepole pine and deciduous forests, giving way to muskeg in lower areas. Few people lived in the area in 1950.
Sources vary as to the origin of the fire but agree that it was caused by human activity. One version faults an Imperial Oil surveying crew with starting a small blaze to protect their horses from biting insects. Another posits that slash burning from agricultural clearing could have been the initial spark.
The blaze started on 1 June 1950, and continued to burn throughout the summer and early fall until the end of October. The ignition point was north of Fort St. John, British Columbia, and the fire burned north-eastwards nearly to Keg River, Alberta.
The path and extent of the burn was influenced by weather patterns. It burned in a fan-shaped pattern along a roughly SW/NE axis, starting in the Rose Prairie area. The fire alternated between "runs" of rapid spread and high intensity, interspersed with periods of low activity. A series of high pressure systems over the summer allowed a buildup of heat and dry air, reducing the moisture levels in the forest fuels. The breakdowns of these systems produced the high southwesterly winds that drove the "runs".
There were five "runs" in total, with the final expansion in September 1950 causing the most destruction and amounting to one-third of the total burned area.
It finally was put out by cooler weather and rain in late October, as it approached Keg River in the Whispering River area (hence one of its names "Whisp Fire").[citation needed]
Most of the burned area was on the Alberta side of the inter-provincial border, with only 90,000 hectares (220,000 acres) burned on the British Columbia side. Size estimates vary due to its remoteness from population centres and the imprecise measurement techniques of the time period. Estimates at the time ranged from 1,000,000 to 1,400,000 hectares (2,500,000 to 3,500,000 acres). In 2008 and 2009, researchers with Natural Resources Canada and the University of Victoria conducted airborne surveys of several boreal forest fires, including the Chinchaga. Using polarimetric analysis, they arrived at a final estimate that was considerably larger than previous estimates, placing the total burned area at 1,700,000 hectares (4,200,000 acres). While most likely not the largest fire ever in North America, maybe not even in the North American boreal forest, the burnt area it produced is the largest ever known.
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Chinchaga fire
The Chinchaga fire, also known as the Wisp fire, Chinchaga River fire and Fire 19, was a forest fire that burned in northern British Columbia and Alberta in the summer and early fall of 1950. With a final size of between 1,400,000 and 1,700,000 hectares (3,500,000 and 4,200,000 acres; 5,400 and 6,600 sq mi), it is the single largest recorded fire in North American history. The authorities allowed the fire to burn freely, following local forest management policy considering the lack of settlements in the region. The Chinchaga fire produced large amounts of smoke, creating the "1950 Great Smoke Pall", observed across eastern North America and Europe. As the existence of the massive fire was not well-publicized, and the smoke was mostly in the upper atmosphere and could not be smelled, there was much speculation about the atmospheric haze and its provenance. The Chinchaga firestorm's "historic smoke pall" caused "observations of blue suns and moons in the United States and Europe". It was the biggest firestorm documented in North America, and created the world's largest smoke layer in the atmosphere.
The Chinchaga River region has a mix of black spruce, lodgepole pine and deciduous forests, giving way to muskeg in lower areas. Few people lived in the area in 1950.
Sources vary as to the origin of the fire but agree that it was caused by human activity. One version faults an Imperial Oil surveying crew with starting a small blaze to protect their horses from biting insects. Another posits that slash burning from agricultural clearing could have been the initial spark.
The blaze started on 1 June 1950, and continued to burn throughout the summer and early fall until the end of October. The ignition point was north of Fort St. John, British Columbia, and the fire burned north-eastwards nearly to Keg River, Alberta.
The path and extent of the burn was influenced by weather patterns. It burned in a fan-shaped pattern along a roughly SW/NE axis, starting in the Rose Prairie area. The fire alternated between "runs" of rapid spread and high intensity, interspersed with periods of low activity. A series of high pressure systems over the summer allowed a buildup of heat and dry air, reducing the moisture levels in the forest fuels. The breakdowns of these systems produced the high southwesterly winds that drove the "runs".
There were five "runs" in total, with the final expansion in September 1950 causing the most destruction and amounting to one-third of the total burned area.
It finally was put out by cooler weather and rain in late October, as it approached Keg River in the Whispering River area (hence one of its names "Whisp Fire").[citation needed]
Most of the burned area was on the Alberta side of the inter-provincial border, with only 90,000 hectares (220,000 acres) burned on the British Columbia side. Size estimates vary due to its remoteness from population centres and the imprecise measurement techniques of the time period. Estimates at the time ranged from 1,000,000 to 1,400,000 hectares (2,500,000 to 3,500,000 acres). In 2008 and 2009, researchers with Natural Resources Canada and the University of Victoria conducted airborne surveys of several boreal forest fires, including the Chinchaga. Using polarimetric analysis, they arrived at a final estimate that was considerably larger than previous estimates, placing the total burned area at 1,700,000 hectares (4,200,000 acres). While most likely not the largest fire ever in North America, maybe not even in the North American boreal forest, the burnt area it produced is the largest ever known.