It is still not under control, nor perhaps for months. We have mentioned it in other threads. Here is one recent status report. Horrific Canadian Wildfires Now Overtaking Oil Facilities There is some mismatch between title and content though. No 'uncovered' oil sands are burning, probably they won't, and I'm not even sure one could set fire to oil sand by trying. Several production facilities have been idled though, and Serious Money is not now being made. Currently, about 350,000 hectares have burned. For perspective a 2011 fire in the Province was twice as large. A 1950 fire elsewhere in Canada was 4 times as large. That last seems to be the largest fire with reliable data. There are few things we can compare to megafires. In 1908, an incoming comet (probably) airburst flattened 200,000 hectares of forest in Tunguska, Russia. A bigger boom, anywhere near population centers, you certainly don't want! Such (few) large megafires are really 'the thing' on Earth. They can only happen in cold-temperate and boreal forests of Alaska, Canada and Russia because other forest types now lack 'continuity'. (Other forest types had continuity >10 kyr ago, but that is another topic). Finally I looked at Mauna Loa 2011 CO2, and could not see evidence of that megafire. Homeostasis of this planet is truly a thing to behold.
It may show up in OCO-2: Videos - Orbiting Carbon Observatory Another source: Satellites Keep an Eye on Wildfires Around the World - Universe Today Bob Wilson
Seems like expansion has finished, and total burned area this time is about 500 thousand hectares. A reasonable estimate for boreal forest aboveground biomass (mostly live wood) is 30 tons carbon per hectare. If all of that became CO2 it would be 0.015 petagrams. Compare global annual fossil fuel carbon emission of 9 petagrams for perspective. Oil-sand extraction companies in that area do $upport ecological research, so there should be opportunities if somebody writes a compelling proposal. A favorite topic of mine is edge effects, and such a large fire has lots of edges. Some are near roads, so there you go. Sample whatever you can make a case for, across burned edges, come back in a few years and do it again.
Yet it is a point source, far enough North to pretty much remain concentrated in the Arctic air masses. One more interesting effect would be the downwind, soot deposits on Arctic and Greenland ice. I'm expecting in a year or so to see the first papers documenting the soot, ash, and CO{2}. My understanding is 30 million hectares burned in Siberia in 2012: Sunburned in Siberia: Heat Wave Leads to Wildfires | Climate Central Bob Wilson
Yes, regional seasonal totals and single fire areas not the same. Boreal forests have always been big on burn, and yet somehow manage to chug along. There is a morel mushroom that pops up after such fires in Alaska. Spoz to be big money in collecting them. Don't know if it is the same deal in Saskatchewan.
