Explosive lightning strike caught on dashcam video
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CTV News
20 hours ago
- CTV News
Lightning strikes across Nova Scotia could soon ignite more wildfires: official
HALIFAX — New wildfires across Nova Scotia could be ignited in the days ahead after thunderstorms rolled across the province Thursday night and into the morning, a fire official said Friday. Forest protection director Jim Rudderham said lightning can penetrate deep into the ground. 'The layers right down through the soil are very dry,' he told a virtual briefing. 'Lightning has a lot of power. It could drive into the ground and take some time to work its way back out again with fire .... It might take a while to pop up. ' Rudderham said that's bad news for a province that was already dealing with 11 wildfires on Friday, including one that has been out of control since Wednesday in Annapolis County. That fire grew from three to four square kilometres in the past two days, forcing the evacuation of about 100 homes in the heavily wooded West Dalhousie area, about 125 kilometres west of Halifax. Rudderham said that on Thursday, provincial officials asked for help from water bombers in another province, but those aircraft could not make it to Nova Scotia because of the long line of thunderstorms. The availability of water bombers has been stretched thin because of the ongoing wildfires across Atlantic Canada, he said. Dave Steeves, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Department, said the helicopters Nova Scotia uses to extinguish fires work well. 'I've been a professional firefighter for over 20 years now and the helicopter resources that we have are extremely effective,' he said. 'We have a group of very talented pilots.' Rudderham agreed. 'The vast majority of our wildfires are easily contained by the machines we have,' he said. 'Remember, this is an extreme year where all the agencies are busy right now, but we continue to investigate and look at options to see what's best for us.' While the thunderstorms dumped rain on some areas, it wasn't enough to reduce the risk of more wildfires, Rudderham said. 'We'll take any kind of moisture,' he said. 'But it's very dry out there and it wasn't enough to help us.' Steeves said milder temperatures and higher humidity was helping firefighters, but 'we're still dealing with a relatively explosive situation.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 15, 2025.
CTV News
a day ago
- CTV News
‘Worst wildfire season': Manitoba Hydro still restoring wildfire-damaged infrastructure
Manitoba Hydro says work is still progressing to repair fire-damaged infrastructure in the province and restore power to all impacted communities. 'It's been one of the worst wildfire seasons ever, certainly the worst in at least 30 years, in terms of both its scale and its duration,' said Peter Chura, media relations officer with Manitoba Hydro. 'It's led to a lot of significant damage to Hydro infrastructure.' Chura said approximately 1,200 wood power poles have been damaged or destroyed by wildfires, along with other equipment such as transformers and power lines. Roughly 500 poles have been replaced, but lots of work still needs to be done, especially in northern Manitoba. 'There's damage in very remote, isolated areas that's difficult to access, and in some cases, there's damage we're only becoming aware of because we haven't been able to access those areas to see what it is,' he said, adding that ongoing fire activity in some areas means they can't assess the damage. He added Hydro has been working to protect their current infrastructure from fire damage by clearing brush and trees from power lines and facilities, and adding fire mesh to power poles. The mesh expands and becomes a fire-resistant layer when exposed to heat. Chura estimates approximately 1,300 customers with Manitoba Hydro are without power, and there is no current timeline for full restoration. 'We really feel for the communities that are without power, those that have been evacuated and are waiting for power to be restored,' he said. 'We're taking every step that we can to get the power restored as quickly as possible under some very challenging circumstances.'
CBC
a day ago
- CBC
Florence and the Machine were right: The dog days (of summer) are over, at least for this year
It's official: The dog days of summer are over. At least, astronomically speaking. "This term the dog days of summer goes back all the way to actually past ancient Greece, even into ancient Egypt and all of it is in reference to a star that's the brightest star in our system called Sirius, which is the dog star," says Orbax, a science communicator with the University of Guelph and who is one part of the science entertainment duo Orbax and Pepper Do Science. Sirius, known as the dog star, was brightest between July 3 to Aug. 11 when viewed in southern Ontario, the U.S. National Weather Service says on its website, "which is 20 days prior and 20 days after the star Sirius rises and falls in conjunction with the sun." But the saying has also been linked to the hottest days, and Orbax says that has led to lore about the star and the weather. "It's one of these stars that actually consistently rises and sets at the same times every year. So when it would come up early in the morning, ancient civilizations would link this idea to almost like having an extra sun," Orbax said. He added that it was also that time in August where grass and foliage might be dying in the heat, "and we'd all feel pretty beat down because my understanding is that in ancient Greece, there was a pretty severe lack of air conditioning." Downward trend to the cold days of winter Turns out, the dog days of summer are also waning weather–wise. Steven Flisfeder, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, says "unofficially you can think of the dog days of summer as the absolute peak in terms of temperatures, so when we're, climatologically speaking, expected to be the absolute hottest before we start our gradual decline in toward the fall," he said. He says the weather often lines up with Sirius being bright in the sky with the hottest days in late July and early August. So now, how do the dog days stand as of Aug. 15? "Climatologically speaking, every day is going to be different, but in general it is a downward trend from here on out," Flisfeder said. As well, meteorological summer is getting set to wrap up at the end of the month. "The meteorological seasons always start on the first day of their respective month. So for summer, it starts June 1, for fall, it starts September 1. And the very basic reason for that is that it's statistically convenient," he said. But even if summer is coming to a close, Flisfeder notes it doesn't mean sweater weather begins on Monday, Sept. 1. "We can still have warm temperatures toward the end of summer even into the early parts of fall. We've had heat events through to the end of September," he said.
