@martinpasching the fire was on the front page of the biggest south german newspaper on saturday, with a big photo and everything, which surprised me because the fires last year (i think? whenever the last big ones were) got nothing bigger than a small article on the back pages, but I guess this one just looks better or something...
If you’re talking about the B.C. fires last year, it’s probably because the one burning up Fort Mac is worse. It’s larger, more dangerous, has annihilated large sections of an entire city, has forced an evacuation of over 80 000 people (some are pushing the numbers at 90 000 or even over 100 000), has its own weather, and is already going to cost the government and insurance companies billions and billions of dollars. It’s record-breaking. My uncle, who’s a firefighter, has been up there battling the flames for days, and at this point they’re saying only an act of nature can halt or put out the fire as the temperature continues to rise. Our premier (for non-Canadians, the premier is the chief minister of government in our provinces/territories) and leader of the Alberta NDP, Rachel Notley, has declared a state of emergency. But the main reason it’s getting more international attention is that Fort Mac is an economically important city with its location near the oil sands (it’s often called an “oil sand city”--this is why you’ll see some shit-for-brains preaching on about how it’s “poetic justice” that it’s burned to the ground), and lots of foreign and domestic oil companies (like Shell) have setups there, which have been stalled.
We’re the third biggest crude reserve after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela so this’ll have a worldwide economic impact, which is why it’s getting way more attention than disasters and fires in Canada usually do. Crude prices are being bid up as many companies shut down their plants, drastically reducing the amount of oil being produced and made available to the global market. Gas prices are expected to rise as production goes down. There are a bunch of different theories as to how this’ll effect the economy (and not just Canada’s) and the energy business, which depend on how long it takes for the oil companies to get their plants/etc back up and running.
So those are just some of the reasons why this is getting way more attention than things in Canada usually do (which is kind of nice because living next to the US means Canada’s issues get negative attention, esp from the Americans themselves). So it’s def not because it looks better--this is probably one of Canada’s biggest disasters (though thankfully not in terms of loss of life) and will have major impacts on some aspects of the global trade economy as crude production suffers.
